a nice website

Dear friend, Hope you everything goes well. I find a good company to buy electronic products recently.Now it is under sales promotion.They provide the attractive service and price to customers, It is realy a good chance for shopping, you can have a look their web if you like, and you will find more surprising.  its website is www.bailecn.com . Sincerely yours!

June 25, 2006

2nd day of Deland Omnium (circuit)
David finished 3rd in a close sprint.
Danae finished 5th in a close sprint.
I finished 8th in a close sprint.
ORC had a good cat 5 race. we had 4 top 10 finishers and Sean took 5th overall in the Omnium.

June 24, 2006

David, Danae, and myself raced in Deland Omnium. David took 3rd in RR, 11 out of 12 in the TT. Danae has 5th in RR, no TT. I flatted on lap 2 of RR and did not do the TT.David is very happy with his 3rd place finish and close sprint.

Changing up the schedule

This week I decided to change our normal routine training schedule. Normally I would train with the kids on Tuesday on Heintzelman for an easy ride with a group of women riders, Wednesday we would do intervals by ourselves, and Friday would be a light spin just to get ready for the weekend races. Since we are not racing this weekend I decided to try something a little different and we joined up with Coach Dennis for training.

Tuesday
On Tuesday we did sprint intervals, 6 short intervals and 4 longer ones. We would start from a track stand and sprint to a designated point without shifting. The sprints were long enough that you would spin out but it foreced you to keep leg speed up for a longer period of time. When we finished the sprints we would continue to roll for a short distance and then turn around and start over which allowed our entire group to stay together no matter how fast or slow you are at sprinting. This worked out much better for the kids and myself since everybody was able to get a hard workout. By the end of the practice I was totally wiped out and feeling dizzy but at least I got a good strong workout. This type of practice was very similar to our Saturday sprint practices on the school track. The kids really liked this over practicing on Heintzelman were we could never seem to stay together.

Wednesday
Last week's practice was a little difficult for me because we did intervals on standard roads and I was unable to keep an eye on both kids due to their different capabilities and we always ended up seperating. On Wednesday we meet at Coach Dennis's house and went to a short 1.3 mile road to practice. The intervals were 2 minutes long with a 8 minute recovery between them. We ended up doing 5 intervals before heading back. The practice was very hard and just like yesterday we re-grouped when everyone turned around to start the next interval. Again the kids really enjoyed this practice and I plan to continue attending this practice.

Thursday
Normally Thursday is a off day but since we are not racing this weekend I decided to ride with Coach Dennis again. This ride is a skills practice and an easy recovery ride. The juniors also have a similar ride out on Heintzelman but I didn't feel like driving that far and also wanted to see what Coach D's skills practice was like. We worked on cornering by taking the inside line while riding in a group. The practice was a little bit harder than I expected because we spriting to the front of the group to talk the inside line through the corner. Both David and I agreed that this was not a typical recovery ride that we are used to. Danae decided to take the day off and it was probably best for her anyways. After we finished with cornering we practiced on the West Orange Trail in a 3 wide rotating paceline. This is where there are 3 lines and only the middle line rotates to the front. This practice caused a couple of riders to crash a few weeks back so several riders were a little nervous but everything went well. I didn't mind the drill except it got kinda dark and I think it would have been safer if we did this with better lighting. I will probably be riding with the juniors next week to see what they are doing on Thursdays.

Dade City Race

This weekend was supposed to be a road race on Saturday and a crit race on Sunday but I decided to only go to the crit on Sunday. I originally planned on racing on both days myself but my road rash forced me to reconsider. Even though I wasn’t there for the road race it was probably for the best. There were a number of crashes and Will, Stephen, and Lance all went down with minor injuries. The women’s race had a rider hit by a car and had to be air lifted to the hospital. But on a more positive note Craig, who just moved up to a Cat 4, finished the 2nd in his first Cat 4 race. Way to go Craig!

On Sunday the crit race was in Dade City. There was a pretty large field of juniors and Team Laser showed up in force. The 10-14 categories had perhaps 12 to 15 racers and it was pretty evenly split.

Danae’s Report
Danae started out trying to hang with her teammate Ali but eventually got dropped. Danae put in a hard effort early in the race but unfortunately spent so much energy trying to stay with Ali that she didn’t have anything left to keep of with the rest of the field and ended up off the back. Danae has good race instincts to jump on wheels but her body just isn’t ready to keep up with her thoughts. She ended up finishing in 4th out of 6.

David’s Report
David had a strong race. The 13-14 juniors started the race fast and hard and David launched several hard attacks from the very beginning. After a couple of laps/attacks David looked spent and fell off the back when Luke attacked. Once David was off he linked up with two other riders that he felt he could beat in the sprint. He road with the two other boys but didn’t want to do all the work so he slowed the pace and let them take turns pulling. When they got to the final lap David easily sprinted to the finish beat the two boys and finished 4th overall. David was a little surprised that he didn’t come in 3rd and thought the officials made a mistake putting another kids in 3rd but there was no mistake, David just lost track of the other boy on the course. If David hadn’t lost track of the other kids I know he could have taken third but I guess this will be another lesson for him, “Never lose track of your competition”.

Got A New CompuTrainer!

I have just received and hooked up a brand new CompuTrainer. The Team purchased two of them (for a total of three) and because I'm a coach it was decided that I could keep one at my house for testing teammates on the west side of town.

I hooked up the CompuTrainer with no difficulties and the 3D software was pretty straight forward as well. Once I got the new trainer calibrated I was ready to race. The default settings for the computer opponent rider is to match whatever pace you maintain which makes it difficult to take the lead but it was good for my first time out. I started with a very short .3 mile race and I was able to beat the computer with a sprint finish. On my second race I choose the Central Park course which is a 10k mildly hilly course. I really enjoyed the ride and learning how to use the software. I played with many of the features of the CompuTrainer and when we got near the finish line I sprinted and beat the computer again.

It was great beating the computer twice even though I know the default settings are pretty easy but it was fun just the same. I look forward to learning how to save my race performance and then racing against my saved races instead of racing against the computer. This was the first time that I have ever enjoyed riding a trainer and I look forward getting on it again.

Starting to feel better

Now that racing season has started our scheduled training rides are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday with races on Saturday and Sunday. This week is an exception because there is no scheduled race on Saturday so we will most likely change the normal training schedule to get in a little extra milage.

The practices on Tuesday and Wednesday went pretty well. I held Tuesday practice for the entire team (mostly juniors) and we had around 5 show which isn't bad considering it was cold and Valentines day. We practiced sprinting with an enphasis on 100% efforts. Everyone did well but Danae struggled a bit with the pace between sprints. Our average speed between sprints was 18 to 20mph and Danae was unable to get her breathing under control when ever the pace held at 20mph so I slowed it down a bit to be sure everyone was rested before the next sprint.
On Wednesday I took the kids to Cherry Lake for longer intervals below threshold which was a little difficult since I the kids ride at different speeds and I couldn't stay with both. I let David go alone for most of his ride and stayed with Danae but near the end I rode with David leaving Danae. I was very nervous leaving the kids alone on the road since I couldn't keep an eye on them but I guess they have been trained well enough and know what to do. Everything ended up just fine although David got ran off the road by a truck with a trailer but I'm sure it was just a simple mistake and David handled it fine anyway.

My road rash bothered me a little at first on both days but once I got moving I didn't really notice it at all. I was a little surprised I didn't have any pain during the ride so I guess I can train and race this weekend but I think I will sit out for now.

I'm back

Well it's been about a year since my last post but I'm back blogging. I've been very busy over the past year dealing with hurricanes, a new house (still dealing with that), becoming a USCF level 3 coach, and of course training for next race season.

Just to catch thisngs up since my last post, both kids are still cycling and racing and this year I will be doing more racing as well (I hope). This weekend was the first race weekend of the 2006 race season and it was a LAJORS race. The weather was not very cooperative (for Florida) as is was windy (25-30mph) and very cold on Sunday (mid 50's).

David's report
David had a somewhat slow day on Saturday's race and finished 5th. He started off having problems clipping into his pedals and had to chase the group right from the begining. After the start he wasn't able to grab a wheel quickly enough and ended up time trialing to the end of the race taking 5th.
On Sunday he had a much better race and finished 2nd. The plan was to have his teamates control the pack to allow him to get away off the front. David attacked first but the pack chased and so David sat up to conserve energy. Other teamates decided to attack and got away leaving David with the pack. Eventually he was able to attack and get away from the field and time trialed away for the rest of the race.

Danae's report
Danae also had problems getting clipped in to her pedals (must be the first race jitters) and struggled early to get started. At the beggining of the race she had problems getting around a slower kid and ended up working herder to catch the other kids. After she caught back up they attacked and left her. She ended up alone and finished 3rd.
Sunday was also a better day for her as she never got dropped and had several very good attacks of her own. Unfortunatly she went too hard and got worn out and was caught by a teamate. She held in the race in any case and finished very well at third place.

Dad's report
I had the worst weekend of them all. I crashed on Saturday before my race during warmup. My crash was my own stupid fault, I went hard into a corner and slid out on the brick pavers. I guess it was better to happen during warmup rather that the actual race. I suffered no serious damage but tore my shorts and have some nasty road rash that preventing me from racing for the weekend.
On Sunday the race was on ORC (Orlando Road Club) sponsored race so Adri and I ended up working the registration all day. Since I wrote the database for registration I ended up staying the entire day at the tent and couldn't have raced even without road rash. The race was a complete sucess.

BTW, a very special thanks to Adri for helping me so much with race registration on Sunday. We both worked around 14 hours.