Day 2
Today was interesting… We got to see who was tired after one day of racing. For one, Mark and I were a bit laggy this evening, but we got better as the day went on. We scored a few points in the points race, and we really shinned when we did our Giro Lanciato. We posted a time of 22.66 for the flying 400m lap, that equals about 64km/h avg. Pretty good for us, but the winners were doing this almost a full second faster! They were two sprinters from South Africa who we’ve become good friends with. They came within 0.1sec of the lap record. Remember, Mario Cipolini was doing flying laps here 9 years ago, and he doesn’t hold the record. That should tell you how fast these two guys are. The record is actually held by two Argentineans. Donadio, and Colla. Colla was a medalist in the Olympic Scratch race. Back to our time of 22.66, that but us in 7th, one spot out of the points.
In the Madison today, we were able to take a lap on the field again, but many teams are lapping the field twice or three times putting us down in the overall… I guess there’s a reason why these guys won World Championships, and Olympic medals!
Day 3
I woke up feeling the sprints today… My legs were heavy, and tight. I went to track to spin them out in the morning. That helped, but I know the racing would hurt today.
Today we had some crazy events… First was the Miss & out, Madison style… So people were sprinting from the back with 40 of us on the track! It was nuts, and we were the 3rd team eliminated. Never having done this event before, I was glad to be out in the sea of chaos! But again, not one crash!
The next race was the Scratch with all 40 riders on the track… Crazy! Mark and I rode very smart. We were in the top 10 the whole race, When I got to the front of the 40 man pace line, I pull off, and I’d find Mark 5 guys back, and slot in just in front on him to stay at the front. We did this a few times, and it ended up that Mark was in front of me with one and a half laps to go. He gave me a huge lead out, but a few guys swarmed me on the outside of the track, and I finished 7th, again one spot out of the points… I really needed a bigger gear, the 48 x 14 was way to small. Guys were using 48 x 13’s. This was the gear to win on. At these speeds, you need it to go that fast.
Day 4
Today was the 100km Madison, I woke up feeling fresh as I was the first day… I was amazed. I took an ice bath the day before, I put the legs up before bed, I drank 3 liters of water, and I took an extra helping of Dextrose after the race was over. I think all these things helped me recover. Racing and training is all about recovery. You can go harder, and do more work over and over. Today it showed. We felt great all race long, but were only able to take 1 lap on the field, some teams took 4! We attacked many times, but we never had enough guys off the front, and the right guys with us to take another lap. The race leaders kept bringing us back. The good part about today was when we started to see a few teams get dropped from the main field. The race averaged over 50km/h for the 100km, so the time and the speed took it’s told on these guys.
Our glory came in the Giro Lanciato, where we were leading for ¾ of the race. We ended up 6th, and scored some valuable points. We were happy today, but now the legs hurt again… More water, more sugar, more Prosciutto at dinner time, and what I just found out was my favorite meat, horse meat! I had no idea I’ve been eating house, but wow. It’s good! We’ll see if it makes us feel as good as we did this morning?