DALLAS SENIOR GAMES, 2018

     The venue is the five-mile outside road around the Texas Motor Speedway, so the concrete is pretty good although they have poured a lot of cracks.  The inclines are deceptive rather than steep, but it is the wind that determines how you do.  I hate wind, or perhaps wind hates me.  On Saturday we had moderate wind out of the ENE.  I kept checking both the weather station and the read-out in my car and they both showed 60 degrees.  A cold 60 degrees.  I had on tights, a t-shirt under the skin suit, and a jacket to warm up; doffing the jacket just before the start. 
     I'm not particularly fond of the Dallas schedule: 5k time trial (TT) at 9am, 10k TT at 11am, and 20k road race at 1pm, then the 40k road race on Sunday morning at 9am.  I'd rather it be the San Antonio schedule of 10k TT and 20k road race on Saturday with the 5k TT and 40k road race on Sunday.  In the past I would skip the 20k road race and be fresh for the 40k. 
     I've written before about Bill Earp.  He is a very nice, personable guy from Missouri.  He's also faster than me.  With tongue in cheek I say I had to change my bragging from being Texas State Champion to being the fastest guy in Texas.  Two years in a row I came in second to him at the Senior Games State Championships.  Then he missed a handful of years so I thought I'd seen the last of him.  Alas, he showed up in Dallas.
     My warm-up consisted of once around the loop with a few accelerations to bring up the heart rate.  Generally I do thirty minutes of warming up.  Six competitors, five of whom have beaten me at one time or another.  Being third off the line, at thirty-second intervals,  I had one person ahead to judge my placement.  When I first started racing I always worried about being caught by my thirty-second man and sometimes that happened.  No longer.
     We started in a southwesterly direction so the wind helped.  When it curved to the west and started the 1% incline the wind became less helpful.  More curve and now the wind came into the right shoulder, with a 1.8% grade.  Now the downhill (1.1%) and more turning into the wind.  With my nose running freely, I ramped up the power and hit the finish line.  My thirty-second guy was only about fifteen seconds in front of me so I knew I wouldn't be last.  On the cool down we just continued around the loop.  Bill came up so the three of us noodled back to our cars to get ready for the 10k.  They didn't post until later, but I managed second place behind Bill, eleven seconds in arrears.
     The 10k is a full loop plus an additional mile and a third.  The tights came off for this one as the temperature had come up to maybe 65.  For the 5k my legs didn't feel like they had the juice they should have, but they felt better as I again did some warming up sprints.  I glanced at my computer as I hit the 5k mark and saw what looked like thirty seconds faster than my 5k time.  As it turned out, my average speed for the 10k was 1.2 mph faster than the 5k.  Results were the same, Bill was twenty seconds faster.
     I figured about an hour and twenty minutes before the road race and I would use this time to switch my Stages Power Meter from the  TT bike to the road bike.  BIG surprise.  I've been switching cranks between various bikes for the last six months.  While I tighten the two bolts to the required 12-14 Nm, the plastic protector bolt is just hand-tightened.  I couldn't budge it.  Somehow (I would like to think it was all the power I put to the pedals) it had self-tightened.  Bummer.  Of course, I don't race by the computer, but it would be nice to see the results afterwards.  Coach Owen would really want to see them.  Pook!  I replaced the crank on the road bike, threw the bike in the car and drove the half mile back to where everyone else was parked and prepared to refuel and rest.  I had driven to the race start line rather than have the bike that far away.
     As I approached I noticed guys riding in the other direction toward the motorway buildings.  I parked and walked over to Tom Hall and asked how long to the next race.  He said "Right now."  Whaaat!  It seems the speedway folks wanted us off the road earlier than scheduled.  And, we had to shorten the course to meet their time limit.  No time to install a bottle bracket, barely time to throw some water in my Camelbak, no time to put it on under my jersey.
     This first half mile is on bumpy, cracked concrete and we took it easy.  The wind had picked up a bit, so this would be more of a defensive race, coming down to the sprint.  Rather than three laps, it would be two laps plus that half mile start (may have been a tad more than half mile).  We took turns pulling, I chose the part with the wind at my back.  One of the less experienced guys took the lead on the back side of the second lap, into the wind.  Rather than rotate out, he kept it.  Big mistake.
     For the finale, the wind came over our back left shoulder.  I have been working on my sprints and when the first two guys started their sprint, I wound it up and began mine.  Immediately I saw I might have waited another fifty yards, because I think it was about 300 to the finish line.  However, starting this far out I caught some of the guys by surprise.  Richard is a whole lot faster than I and apparently jumped on my wheel.  I finished strong, but he pipped me at the line by about half a wheel.  Wow!  That was fun.  Bill came in third, but I don't know how far back.  So far, the three of us hogged the medals.
     The award ceremonies took awhile, but the speedway folks didn't care as long as we weren't on the road.  Once back at the hotel, I soaked my tired body and prepared for an early dinner at Olive Garden, a few miles down the road.  Then I relaxed in the room and enjoyed the exciting basketball games.
     Breakfast at 6am consisted of oatmeal, juice, a muffin, bagel.  With a 9am start, I had plenty of time to prepare and at 7:45 checked out of the hotel.  I had Nuun in the Camelbak, under the jersey.  Again, tights and jacket for warm-up.  The wind had shifted to ESE and lost some of its bite.  No tights for the race, but arm warmers.    Oooh!  The legs let me know they worked hard yesterday.  Unless the guys took it easy today, there would be no finish sprint.
     Five laps.  Five guys.  Two had dropped out and we had one guy (Brian) with fresh legs.  We started out at a moderate pace, something faster than I would have liked, but not bad.  Two abreast for about a mile, than at a slight turn and lane change, it worked out that me and Bill were pulling, but when I looked back the other guys were lined up behind him.  So I dropped back to the rear.  The pace picked up.  Bill and Richard took turns keeping the pace.  I remembered to hit the lap button the first two laps.  We averaged 20.3 for the first, 21.1 for the second.
     I kept up easily for two laps, never pulling but staying mid pack.  Bill kept applying pressure and by the end of the third lap I was praying I could hang with the group.  On the backside of lap four, with the fresh legs guy (who contributed precious little to pulling) behind me, I (intentionally) let a slight gap open up.  Richard saw this, called out "gap" and he and Bill and Jaime ramped it up.  Fresh legs expended a lot of energy closing it down, with me behind him.  When they saw no gap, the pace lightened.  I dreaded the incline on the fifth lap, but both Bill and Richard were now saving their energy for the end.  My heart rate dropped twenty beats but my legs were telling me "no way."  When the final spring began I noodled on in in last place.  Bill, Richard, Brian in that order.  Still, with a lot of the lap being in the 16 mph range, the final three lap pace was 20.0.
     I'm really happy with the new bike.  I closed down all of the accelerations. I just need to get more stamina.  And, bring a tool to leverage the plastic nut.  I really wanted to see my power and cadence numbers.  Next month is State Championships in San Antonio.