Riding the Prologue

There is an invitational division of 10 riders that has the opportunity to race on the course. They are the last riders before the start of the real event. In the morning they have a celebrity division, and then the invitational race. After that the big boys start the race.
I agreed to do it, for the buzz, but was a little apprehensive. I was to be the 2nd last rider of my division to start. The first rider of the day in the Tour Prologue was only 2 minutes behind me.

Good advice always welcome!

 »When you leave the starters house, ride the bike as hard as you possibly can!!! When you taste the lactic acid in your throat and your lungs feel like they are about to collapse, you should be about halfway. When your legs feel like they are going to cramp and lock up, and you can hardly see straight, you are ¾ of the way done. It is  just before you’re about to blackout from shear agony and lactic acid poisoning, you will see the finish line and be done racing.«

This is the advice the guys gave me before this race, isn't it scary?

How much could I hurt myself?

I thought to myself, what the hell have I signed myself up for? I must admit though, when someone puts a number on me, I don’t know what it is, but my racing mind takes over. I am far from fit at the moment, but when the number gets stuck on your back and you start to warm up, your mind switches into race mode.
I started to get ready and despite the fact that I knew I was not super fit, I decided I wanted to see just how much I could hurt myself. Lets face it, it was only 4-5 minutes at the most and there was 40 000 people on the course. It would be a real buzz. I headed down to the race start and warmed up with the CSC and Slipstream boys. I grabbed myself a Starbucks coffee double expresso to lift the heart rate a little more and chatted away to the boys.

I was in pain but it was a nice pain

My race start was set for 12:58pm. I headed over to the start 10 minutes before my scheduled departure and drank in the atmosphere. It was huge. The place was pumping. Once up on the starters house I got my countdown and took off.
The course went 400 meters down before taking a hard left turn and then another 200 meters before another hard left. After these two turns, it was all a false flat to the finish line.

Four Minutes of Shear Pain

The course was a short 3.4km long and had a false flat for the last 2 km of the ride. I woke up early on Sunday morning and had a ride with Conrad and Christoph through the back hills around Palo Alto. They were having a little bit of a laugh about the fact that I had signed up for 4 minutes of shear pain and they were going to sit in the VIP section of the race and watch me hurt. I thanked them for their support and headed back early from our ride to prepare for the race. When I arrived back at the hotel after the ride I went and registered for the event and picked up my number. I bumped into my good friends Dave Millar and Henk Vogels who were racing. They gave me a little bit of advice about prologue racing.

My legs were screaming for a while after and my lungs were sore from breathing

I roared out of the blocks as hard as I could, and before I knew it I was turning a hard left. I accelerated out of the saddle again and then took the next left. It was here I saw the huge crowd and thought, WOW. I was pushing a relatively nice cadence of about 95rpm and sitting in my 53:15 gears. I felt great and rode the bike as hard as I could. Like the guys said, I really started to taste the lactic acid about 2 minutes into the effort and was at maximum effort.
I simply could not push the bike any harder, even if I had tried. I came around the turn with about 200 meters to go and really enjoyed the buzz. I was in pain but it was a nice pain. I did not have the fast twitch fibers to get any more speed out of myself, and this really limited the ability of myself to go any faster.
I stopped the clock at 4:24, which was cool. I was content but definitely not as fast as I have been when I was a short course boy. I really got the buzz but my legs were screaming for a while after and my lungs were sore from breathing in so hard to capture the air needed to feed my muscles.
The overall race winning time was 3:52, so it is amazing how quickly these guys can ride their bikes. Fabio Cancelara who won the day, rode 8 seconds quicker than the rest of the field. He was amazing to see.
I really enjoyed the experience and had a great time. These boys really earn their money, and I have to say that the sport of cycling is cool. Everything about the day was awesome. I loved it. I had a great weekend in Northern California and will enjoy watching the rest of the Tour of California on TV.

I am now off to Valyermo and a clinic with bike fitting guru Dan Empheild to look at my bike position and take part in an accreditation course to add to my knowledge about bike position. It will be really interesting.