I'm not sure

if neglection is a word or not, but it's something that I'm guilty of, being that I have been pretty lackadaisical on the blogger here lately. Not a real big week to report on though. Didn't do Westlake on Tuesday. We did a pretty hard group ride from Spear Rd. in Concord on Tuesday instead. Cold and windy and race pace throughout most of the training ride. We got in 44 miles that night with many hills. Thursday was the LeRoy TT. Nice night too. There were 6 guys that showed up. Ray, Matt, Sean, Larry, a new rider that is an acquaintance of Sean's and myself. Everyone rode fast with some very impressive numbers and speeds being posted. Ray had fastest time of the night. Afterwards Jim opened the trunk of his car to allow anyone that wanted some training jerseys to rummage through probably 50 or so jerseys to find some that they wanted for only $5 per jersey, pretty nice, thanks Jim! After making a mess of Jim's trunk we set off on an interval workout (actually only Ray and Matt did) Sean and I rode and did some intervals but nothing like 3x10 minutes and 10x1 minute at full race pace, 8 mile TT was enough of full race pace for me that night. Nice night and good to see those guys out in my neck of the woods.
Easy spins on the other nights since I didn't want to trash my legs that bad for Race for Alex on Sunday. Looks like the weather is going to be nice too. Lake Effect will be out in our new team kits from Hincapie. Very nice stuff!

Triathlon training will ramp up a little more heavily next week. I have 6 races on the schedule for this summer and I'm really looking to do well in all of them. I have been in the water more this past winter than I ever have been and my running seems to be coming along a little more than in the past as well, so we'll se what happens come race days.

Not much more to report on I guess, good luck to all that raced this weekend and we'll see ya at Race for Alex tomorrow.

Bill

Cleveland Triathlon Club

training day #1 at Headlands Beach State Park in Mentor. This is the location of the Greater Cleveland Triathlon that is held there August 10th. There are 3 training sessions put on by Mickey Ryzmek of North Coast Multisports that benefit everyone interested in triathlon from newbies to elite racers. This will be my 4th season as the bike support / mechanic at the training sessions and this is all through Sherman from Bike Authority. Sherman is a major sponsor of the GCT and has race day support and also is part of the bike expo every year held at the Fairport Harbor Coast Guard Station the weekend of the race, Sherman and the guys from the shop do a GREAT JOB at this event!

After the clinic was over and all the bike repairs were made we went out and rode a fast loop of the 24.5 mile Olympic distance bike course (the one that I'll be racing in August) then quickly transitioned and ran a 4.5 mile out and back loop. The run distance for an Olympic race is really 6.2 miles, but it's still realatively early in the tri season in this part of the country to be doing long brick runs. No swimming this morning since the Lake is only 54 degrees. Although many triathletes from all around the world do a race in San Francisco called The Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon where the athletes jump off of a ferry in the middle of San Francisco Bay and swim 1.5 miles in low 50's degree water dodging sea lions and very strong currents, so the temperature of the Lake right now would be perfect training for that race. The swim distance for an Olympic is only .75 miles though, not 1.5. Actually I think Julie Sroka is part of a triathlon team this year that is going out next month do this race.

The workout went well with the bike split at 1:05 and the 4.5 mile run at 31:07 and feeling good afterwards, oh yea!

Easy workout tomorrow!

How's this

for a grand idea? Derek, You could ask Rene if she could possibly make a tray of some of her famous homemade pastries, you could bring them to next Tuesday night at the races, you could pass them around to certain members of the peleton, namely Team Lake Effect members, maybe around lap 3 or 4, we could eat, digest, chat a little then sprint to the finish line like ole' Gabe here, but the only difference is the guy sprinting would be wearing a Team Lake Effect kit.. How's that sound? And it would all be because of Rene's cookies! Good idea?
Or.... we could just eat them after the race :-) That sounds like a better idea.


How bout it Rene?

Super Tuesday

was pretty super for Team Lake Effect. We all did quite a bit of work to bring the break back that included Paul Martin and Jim Baldesare after a prime lap. Once the break was brought back Paul launched another that included Rudy, Derek, Shawn and Matt. Total number in the break was 8 and there was a lot of fire power up there. We managed to react to anything that tried to bring them back and were up front in the field the whole race. Most racers were very aggressive in the field and raced well with some pretty hard attacks thrown in. The field was sprinting for 9th. so most did not sit up and just roll across the line. In the end we had Shawn 3rd. Rudy 5th. Derek 6th. and Matt 8th. Mike, Tony, Chris, Scott and myself rolled in somewhere in the top 15 I would say. It was also nice to see Phil Hines in the race today as well for his 1st. Westlake race, he raced very strong, glad your in Ohio now Phil and I'm looking forward to some good training rides! It was a fast race again as has been the case all year so far at Westlake, we were a couple clicks shy of 27 mph. for 42 miles of racing, not too shabby.

Nice race everyone

Not much

in the way of training today (Sunday). Had the roofers over today to do their thing on my roof. There were 9 of em total and they busted out my roof in 4 hours and they even roofed my storage shed in the back. I'll probably chuck the bike up in the trainer and do a little spinning while the Cavs are on just to get somewhat of a workout in today. Good swim workout yesterday and the week went pretty well so I'm not that concerned about not having a big weekend.
Maybe I'll have some legs for Super Tuesday, it is Zipp Demo night ya know!

Go Cavs

Feeling

a little better this week finally. This head and chest cold hasn't really put me down completely, just enough to make you feel like you really don't want to do very much. I had to really push myself to get out this week so far and with it being cold and windy most of the week it's been a struggle. I had a good tri workout today though and feel much better now that I did have a good training day. I've been nursing a sore left calf muscle lately and I haven't been able to really run for about the last 2 weeks. This week I have ran twice (brick runs) and no pain, that makes me happy too. Wow, I don't know what I would do if something seriously would happen to me and I couldn't train or race anymore. My family is ready to commit me now when I'm not able to get out for a few days, although rest is good for you and I should probably do more of it, at least that's what Shawn keeps telling me. Just a training junkie I guess. Sometimes I think I would rather train than race! But what's the sense in all the training if you don't put it to use?

Hoepfully we can get some Team participation for the Bike Authority / Team Lake Effect Time Trials that are tentatively scheduled for June 12th. and 19th. at Allardale Park. Last years race participation was very good and we had some very fast times.
Check our website for upcoming information, www.teamlakeeffect.net

Later all

Training

ride for me today after work. Not a real productive ride just one to kind of clean the legs out a little from Saturday at RATL since I didn't get out on the bike yesterday.
Did 43 miles and felt a little better than I did over the weekend but I think I'm going to skip the World's tomorrow even though it's supposed to be the nicest day of the week. It's hard to race effectively when the chest is all loogie'd up and hard to catch your breath, you all know that you have to have your game on at Westlake and if you don't you soon become a spectator. Gas is far too expensive nowadays to only do a few laps and then get popped off the back and cruise in the parking lot solo and watch from the front seat of the car!. Next week (5/20) is the Zipp Demo night and Tony's jonesin' to get some 404's on his bike so we'll be there for that.

Baseball is winding down for Nick so I'm going to be ramping up the training a little more now that we won't have games 10 times a week....Spring baseball is a fast season but is so totally life consuming as is wrestling in the winter. The schools surely don't care one bit about the parents that ride their bikes and train and race or anything like that, like all we have to do is go to baseball games and wrestling matches, how selfish of them!!

Good luck to everyone tomorrow at Westlake.

Peace

RATL

#4 and series finale. Masters race started out pretty fast with attacks being thrown out when Rudy's finally stuck and no-one followed. He practiced his time trialing for our up coming Lake Effect TT Series for nearly 10 laps and solo'd in for the win. Very nice job to Rudy. From there it was mostly uneventful. Sal took off later on then John Ehrlinger took off on the prime lap and never looked back to solo in for 3rd. Nice job to you John. The avg speed was down from the previous races except on the sprint where I hit 33.5 mph. Most everyone was pretty much content on just sitting in today which was fine with me, I have been sick most of the week and during the race I was really feeling it.

Tony finished in the main group in the I,II,III race and he said that he wasn't feeling the greatest either. He stayed with the group and everyone that was there know's that that race was very fast and hard for that course. After about 5 miles down the road on the way home he was asleep in the van

Nice job to all teammates that raced, everyone did well and a big Thanks to the Summit Freewheelers for hosting these races again and to all the volunteers.

Tuesday is another day!

LeRoy weekly TT's

are starting up again on May 22nd. Jim Behrens has been organizing a low key, no cost, weekly 8 mile ITT since I think Moby Dick was a minnow. Starting time is 6:30 every Thursday evening. Starting point is at the LeRoy Fire Station. The course is an out an back loop consisting of a climb, fast downhill, false flat and fast flats. Great course to utilize all gear combo's. If anyone needs directions please let me know or e-mail Jim directly at jimbehrens@gmail.com.

The blog

is comin back to life.

Oh yea, more to report on this weekend after RATL.

Westlake

went pretty good tonight. Rudy made the break of 4 that stuck and ended up with 3rd. working with Brian Batke most of the time. The team rode aggressively tonight chasing anything that tried to bring the break back and riding at or near the front most of the race. Snakebite, Spin and RGF had quite a few guys tonight. Avg speed for the race was 26.6 mph. Austin and Gwen did great in the B race also.

Nice job all.

Had to delete

the whole last blog. I have no idea what happened, but every time I would access my blog and then return to another site such as my homepage or any other site, only text would show up and no pictures. I'm really not sure if deleting and starting over is or was the solution but I will give it another try. If anyone has had those problems before please let me know. I'm gonna work on it for a little while tonight, but it will be a work in progress again. Besides the new matress came in today and I want to give it a good testin' out. No, get your minds out of the gutter, not that way!

:-)