A Terrible State

Well the State Titles were a waste of time. Nothing learned, nothing gained, nothing of interest to report.

Clocked exactly the same time as last year in the ITT after riding nice neat lines and riding at a near perfect cadence on 48/14x20mm. My time of 56+ was over four seconds off the target time. Winner's time was an unratified world mark of 48.5

Didn't even qualify for the ride-offs in the 200m fly. Pushed a 50/14x20mm but still didn't hook up with the track. 12.7 is about the same as what I ride at home on shallow banked hotmix.

This year I rode the 3000m pursuit just to set a mark. Having never done one before it was just a matter of beating 4 minutes to be happy. Pulled a 3:56 riding on a borrowed Teschner with 48/14x23mm and 165mm cranks. Caught with a lap to go, but it didn't matter. I had a mark and with plenty left on the track there's scope for good improvements. No ride off for me though.

By the time the pointscore came around I was just fed up with the whole damned thing. The dodgy quad was just getting in the way and it's never fun competing with an unwanted handicap. The plan was to mark two riders and go for a lap on the field when the other riders eased off after the second sprint. They eased up plenty after the first sprint and spread. I just rolled through the enormous gap and opened up a handy 70m lead. Another guy bridged and slowed. The move was stymied and we got swept up just as the main bunch was winding up for the second sprint. The pace was too much for my tired legs and that was my race over.

The only positive to come out of the championships is that I might be able to slip under the radar at the Worlds later in the year. The National Titles in a few weeks time were now out of the question. My leg needed rest, and plenty of it.

Starting gates

The Individual Time Trial and Individual Pursuit events would use starting gates in 2007. Normally these events are hand started so a special training session had been organised, just one week out from the State Championships.

The muscle tear hadn't had time to recover from the Beaumont Rd crit, so the agenda was simply to get the timing correct and worry about the horsepower later. Flying 150m sprints were thrown into the mix to keep things honest. No problems there.

Managed to completely stuff up one of the starts. Got confused with the countdown and moved about 10cm forward when the gun went. Most embarrassing, but glad to get it out of the way outside of competition.

Four days to go and drive across the top of the pedal stroke is still only 75% at best...

The beginning of the end

The muscle tear wasn't serious but it was preventing me from pushing through the top part of the pedal stroke. Spinning at high cadence / low load was no problem and my times for flying 500m hadn't dropped off. Starting and accelerating were a totally different matter.

It was impossible to drive hard off the start line and that meant that times were down by nearly 3 seconds for the starting 250m. That's an eternity. And it wasn't going to get much better before the State Titles.

Raced B Grade at Beaumont Rd crits one week after the muscle tear. Didn't drive too hard, just sat in the pack mostly. At the bottom turn on the last lap I switched to idle and kissed my series lead in the pointscore goodbye. After rolling in about a minute behind the main pack it was ice and assessment.

The torn muscle was mostly OK but still sore. The State Titles were going to be painful and could even spell the end of a full winter road season. To make things worse, CNSW had decided to start two of the events out of starting gates to assist riders intending to compete at the Masters World Championships. Practice was two days away...

In the beginning

Just two weeks before the 2007 Masters State Track Titles I managed to tear one of the quad muscles in my right leg. It was the stupidest thing.

First up was a 20km warmup, then a handicap race. Punctured after just 15km with no spare or pump. 4km walk back to the start line. Managed to snaffle a lift with 2km still left to go and sore, blistered feet.

Climbing an innocuous little hill in a small gear on the 40km warmdown ride I pushed just a little harder and felt a minor pain that just said "Don't do that!". Nothing serious. Or so I thought.

The pain wouldn't go away and by the time I had driven home it was making me feel nauseous. Ice and more ice was the order of the day. But the recovery was going to be long, tedious, and painful.

Training for the next four to six weeks would change from peaking to spinning light gearing wherever possible and hoping that fitness and muscle memory might get me through.