Monday, April 21, 2008

Cat 2 Punching Bag, at your service

I just asked Casey Kerrigan (our benevolent overlord of NCNCAness) for
the road cat 2 upgrade.

As soon as I figure out what it is I can actually do in the 2s I'll set
some goals and set about achieving them, little striver that I am.

Anyone have ideas? Collective brain-storming may help.

So far I have this in from Jason James on a ride Sunday - I should try
to beat all the BPG riders. Except Justin of course. Funny enough, if
you look at the Madera results - http://www.velopromo.com/mdra-rl08.htm

- I've, uh, already beat them (if you compare TT times from their P/1/2
area to my cat 3 area). I'm going to guess there's a more rational
explanation for that (they hit the "power brownies" early and got lost?)
but who knows.

So, competitive ideas:

- beat BPG except Justin. There's an idea.
- Beat Joel (and gloat over it, even if he's working for a teammate?)
- top-20, then top-15 then top-10 in crits? a good progression
- have the longest leg hair of anyone in the P/1/2 field?

Personal ideas:

- I'd like to drop my time at the Everest Challenge if I race it.
- simply finish a tough road race (like Berkeley Hills or Pescadero)?
- tune the engine up to 4.5W/Kg for 20min efforts? (I'm 4W/Kg now)

What think you, oh internets?

-Mike

6 comments:

Mike Hardy said...

"Your upgrade request has been approved. An upgrade sticker has gone into the mail today and you should have it in a few days. Place this sticker on the front of your license in a place where it doesn't coverup other information on your license.

If you will be racing before you get your upgrade sticker in the mail you can print out a copy of this message and bring it with you to show proof of your new racing category to the registration people.

Upgraded to Cat 2 Road

Casey Kerrigan
NCNCA President"

runjoelrun said...

"Your upgrade has been declined. We fear that will overpower the 1/2field. Instead we are moving you directly to a UCI Pro contract.

Place this sticker on your forehead where it doesn't cover up your eyes or ears, so you can better respond to all those Cat 2 attacks.

If you will be racing before your upgrade sticker comes in the mail you can print out this email and place it on your dashboard, as it also serves as a univeral parking pass.

Casey "JR" Kerrigan
NCNCA Poom Bah"

runjoelrun said...

Mike:
My advice is go into every race planning on winning or die trying. Save the top 20 goal for your first NRC race!

Anonymous said...

beware: ANALYSIS TO PARALYSIS

Your obsession with numbers will only weigh you down, dude. Example: BPG sent 2 TT riders and a support rider to Madera. One of the TT guys flatted, and you beat him as well as the support rider. Matty W still cooked you by 2 mins, and that's AFTER a thursday hillclimb and a much faster crit.

I'm telling you Hardy, just race your f*&%ing bike. P/1/2 is a bitch and math won't make it hurt less. Suffering like a dog is par for the course, so your goal should be to rock out with your cock out and make the winning break or puke all over your stem trying.

You're playing with blue chips from now on, my friend. Staying safe and hedging bets will only make you highly aware pack fodder. Turn off the mental calculus and power numbers and all that shit. Use the force, Luke. Attack when it hurts.

Mike Hardy said...

Duly noted Justin - I'll say in my defense I only look at power during a race if I'm solo for some reason. Other than that race data is only used for training planning after post-race analysis.

If I'm in the middle of the pack sprint leadout thinking about my average normalized power or something, then yeah, that's definitely wankerific. And not responding to an attack because it'd be over-threshold or something - also pretty much pointless to be out there.

But I'm not giving the numbers up. As long as I keep improving, I'll keep 'em. If I plateau, everything's on the table though. I'll re-evaluate everything in the fall and we'll see then.

"Rock out with your cock out", that's so rockstar I love it. I can take Joel's advice maybe and put the cat 2 sticker down there in those moments so it's still kid-friendly in the downtown crits perhaps

Anonymous said...

With your Cat 2 cred, I think you ought to come down to SoCal and learn what it means to race against a real man. I challenge you AND your hairy legs to a best-of-ten series town line sprints. I'll even spot you the Bradbury town line, since I didn't even know it was there until you beat me to it last time.