From stage racing to track.

Again a relatively long break from blogging, but relatively productive block on bike. After the road nationals it was a week until the U6 Cycle Tour in Tidaholm. That period I spent just getting ready to roll from the first to last stage.

The race itself clearly itself provided me with definite highs and lows as well. The highs included prologue, first road stage and especially last road stage. The criterium and second road stage were the lows and the finishing time trial landed somewhere in between being neither good, nor bad ride. In the prologue I was 10^th with a solid but shy overall performance. The road stage was quite nervy, but I managed to get through with no problems. Second road stage was simply terrible. Cold, wet, and even colder – I ended my race shivering at around 115km. The criterium next day went at the beginning from break to break until I had to gasp some air inside the bunch and during that period I locked my brakes and destroyed my rear tyre and was eventually flagged out.The last road stage was good. I was in the first break and rode actively. Some nervy moments inside last five kilometers, however, cost me a chance for real good stage result. In the time trial I gave my all, but the active road stage made a notable difference and I just wasn't hitting the right watts and ended up being 18^th.

After U6 Cycle Tour it was time for a two-week track cycle to complete the nats. In the mean time, my training had made me slower and slower and actually the only idea of the two-week cycle was to get at least some speed to my legs. It worked okay in the end. On Tuesday before I rode a solid kilo in almost perfect conditions. Come Friday and the national kilo champs my time was enough for fourth, meaning that the sprinters had got the better of me– as I expected, but managed to forget at the time. My sincere congratulations go to Juhani for his first jersey. You really deserve it, wear it well buddy!

On Saturday I had two disciplines in my schedule – individual pursuit and match sprint. Individual pursuit to win and match sprint for fun. I qualified fifth in the match sprint in the morning and first in the individual pursuit with a controlled ride, despite my too quick opening. In match sprint I was dropped by my friend Antti and then solely concentrated on the pursuit final and especially starting calmly. The final was good for me, and I even got to enjoy the last three laps of the race. It was my third, but still felt superb. The day on that was getting only better and better when I watched Antti riding like a boss in his first ever proper sprint competition. At the end of the day, he was crowned the champion. Congrats Antti! On the last day we had the team pursuit in the program. We rode it safe and got gold to wrap up the weekend. Then it was time to enjoy the rest of the competition as a spectator.

Good couple of weeks are now bagged and I'm looking forward to the future.

My Sunday on bike.

Waking up at five o'clock on a Sunday morning is not in everyone's mind, I guess. It was in mine, as it was the national road race.I had to, as I had opted to travel to Pori on the two race days from rather than staying there for the whole weekend. Being smart afterwards, I think it was a good choice for many reasons. Firstly, we had time to solve and manage the technical issues with my TT-bike and secondly, it was very much a stress free day and there was no such boredom nor intentions to go to watch others racing on the day between our races. Besides, there was a lot of food in our fridge.

To the race then. Total of 15 laps and 180 odd kilometres on a relatively easy course in sunny weather was ahead of the peloton. On a personal note: that's the longest race ever for me. I had my own targets set for the race and I took it pretty relaxed as the only message from my support (mum and dad) was to have fun, have a good training and stay safe. Actually, I would have wanted to get into some early break, but as it so often happens – I missed it. I was in the top 15 when it went after some three kilometres, but got stuck in the bunch and the it was too late. Gutted I was. Then it settled down for a while until the strong guys started to make their first moves. I managed to follow one and another, but when those both came down I simply had to the bunch to rest for a while as we had still some 140 to go. Somewhere there those guys went again and then we never saw them again in the bunch. Then again, it settled down for a longer time.

Coming to the last hour some guys from the early break had dropped back and apparently one of the teams, V8, wanted to start moving again in the bunch and the intensity picked up again. I felt okay and found myself in the front several times, but never got away. Then, just before the last lap, there were couple lone guys in between the top six and the bunch. I managed to get there for my surprise with some others coming up there a tad later. I feel that I did a fair share with some guys skipping their turn in the front in the, lets call it, middle group and had no legs going to the final sprint. Had I had some legs, I dare to reckon that the result would still be the same with my sprinting abilities, that are actually non-existent.

I was 14^th in the results and happy with that. It actually was a place better than in the time trial. I didn't expect that. I'm pretty happy with my ride yesterday, and I think it is safe to say it was my best road race this far. All in all, my road nationals were okay if not good, when I consider where I was a week or two ago and yes, leave alone the technical problems on Friday.

Now a week until U6 Cycle Tour. Training, resting and eating until that.

Time trialling with Formula 1 tactics.

It gives some, it takes some. Yesterday, however, it seemed to take little bit more than some. It was the time trial nats over a rolling course of 45kms. I felt pretty ok the whole day and felt that the extreme addition of carbs had changed my legs at least a bit. Despite that, I started cautiously as I wasn't quite sure how it will turn out.

Eventually my slow start was pretty good to the turn around. Then I was kinda counting kilometres to get going on the last ten miles – at least that was my mind set. Then became the problems with my bike. Nothing lifts the spirit like three dropped chains in time trial race. I count it to some extent as bad luck as the bike was perfectly fine in the shakedown and warm-up. Yet I was forced to use the tactics applied by Red Bull and other F1 one teams, except I didn't change any parts. Another difference seems to be that in the F1, three stop tactics seems to work, but in time trialling – it definitely doesn't. Bullshit, some might say and well, so did I. I lost quite some time, but that didn't cost me a medal at the end, but some places it did. I finished 15^th. Still I decided to finish and for a great surprise I happened to fit in to the team winning the team competition, which was a lucky end to a quite dull day.

Despite all the issues my performance was fairly alright. I felt good all the way. However, there is one thing that bogs me. I'm riding my bike with ease at the moment. I just can't get it all out. I somehow can't get a sick feeling of going fast. The efforts are steady, but submaximal at this point. It is a shame, but there are things we can do about it. We are working on that and on the chain problem as well.

Tomorrow is a race day again. Road nationals this time. Having seen the course, I feel the race is gonna fairly nervy until the main contenders start to make moves. We will see about that then! But first things first – I'm feeling well good today, submaximal time trial you know - so I think I just might start waking and working my maximals already today.

Rest and get better?

After the second trip to Sweden I took couple days of recovery to get somehow set for the racing weekend at Kauhajoki consisting of 20km time trial and 142 road race. I had a pretty decent feeling, but it didn't quite transfer to my riding and it was disappointing at first hand.

In the time trial my power was down, or maybe I should say not on the level I expected or presumed. Now the magical word here is 'expected'. What did I actually expect and why? There is absolutely no reason to expect anything before, there should only be a plan to be completed. Learning point number one.

Still, the power was down to normal and there symptoms that I didn't perform at my level. The next day I rode a decent road race being active the whole way and then missing the break. I guess that happens more often than finding the right break. However, this time I had no expectations whatsoever. There might just be something in there. For it being only psychological, I dared to disagree. We (or more my father) did analyse the rides and loads of other data to find out, actually, what is going on. The data told us things that I would count as learning points from number two to number x. There were some things directly related to my riding or how I should ride.

The main point still was in my training regime. We take HRV-samples every morning to follow my recovery and ultimately avoid overtraining. One measure is the relationship of LF and HF and those numbers put on a diagram showed that I'm not really quite sure what I'm talking about now. In a scale from total wilderness to complete understanding, I'm somewhere in the middle, I guess (or hope). Anyway, there was indications that I had not recovered sufficiently from my previous performances and maybe therefore, I lacked in my performances. The conclusion was that before the road nationals next weekend and U6 Cycle Tour a week from that, we put more emphasis on quality training and quality resting to maybe hit some form some time during peak period. As a matter of fact, if this is the case – temporary overload – it should be good. From now on intense workouts with enough rest could really bring some form for the peak period. It still remains to be seen. Thumbs up, that we are right.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to race in the nationals next weekend in Pori and after that I'm eager to find some form for U6 Cycle Tour in Tidaholm, Sweden.