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Time trials rule not just in the New Jersey State
Championships but also in Connecticut…..
Another week has gone by and we have the pleasure of reporting
some success stories for Finkraft.
First up “Congratulations” to Mark Pohndorf for his win at the
NJ Time Trial State Championship (see detailed write up below). He was
working so hard towards this goal and it paid off. At the end he took
the win by a few seconds from” Mr. NJ Time Trial Man” Steven
Goldman who in several write ups on the Peloton East site and others showed
that he is a class act and gentleman also in defeat. The times at this
event where very impressive and Pete Cannell posted an incredible 50.20 for
40k which is Pro-level stuff!
In the same race Ralph Warmuth
posted a nice time and came in 5th in his age class. He only
missed the podium by a few seconds. This is even more so impressive since
Ralph was using his road bike with some modifications after having had the
misfortune of a recent crash caused by an inconsidered driver.
Glad to see that Ralph, our
"teutonic beast" is back and back strong. Congrats to him for a
great result!
Over the weekend Christophe Jammet raced to an impressive 4th
place in the CRCA race and the Thursday of this week
"powerhouse" John Raheb sprinted himself in usual fashion to a
second place at the local Rockleigh Criterium.
For those of you who have never raced there, you should give
it a go. Lots of good racers show up there and the race takes now place on
a smoothly re-paved course. Great speed work and a wonderful sense of
camaraderie before and after round up the experience. It does not get any
better during the week!
Several Finkraft athletes made their journey up to the
Connecticut Stage Race in Torrington,
Ct. It was the first year
that this race had been organized and Bill Thompson had asked Finkraft
previously to promote the race amongst its athletes to secure success and
continuity for future years.
Needless to say the race was organized seamlessly and
everyone appeared to have a great time.
The race was composed of a prologue TT of 8 miles, a circuit
race of 24.1 miles and a road race of a whopping 91 miles.
Now the assumption would have been that the road race will
ultimately determine the outcome of this stage race but that was only true
to a small degree. Mostly the fields stayed together except in the Pro ˝
were a breakaway formed early (including Roger) and motored from there to
the finish for an overall time of just of 3 hours 30 minutes. The next
fastest (or slowest race) race was 4 hours 2 minutes. Incredible stuff!
Read more on this race on the blog on the website (http://www.finkraftcoaching.blogspot.com/).
Roger gives you a taste of just how hard that race was in the Pro 1,2
field.
In summary the TT became a dominant
part of this race and whoever did well there would end up placing high at
the end. From the Finkraft athletes, Andreas (Cat. 3) finished 5th
in the TT and GC, Evan (Cat. 3) finished 9th in the GC, John
Landino (Cat. 3) 14th in the GC.
On an individual stage level John
Raheb scored once more putting all his focus in to the Circuit Race and
making it the designated goal for a win. On the last downhill before going
to the uphill finish John opened up the gap and powered handily and with a good
gap to the line. A win!!
In the Cat. 4 races Alvin Poblacion (FGX Racing) had a
great Circuit race finishing 5th and 14th overall
while James Stevens (Toga) came in 20th overall and David
Trumpf (FGX Racing) rounded up the Finkraft guys placing 31st.
In summary some good racing in a wonderful atmosphere that we
endorse strongly for next year.
This week another Rockleigh Crit took place and Juan
Aracena took 4th in the B race while John Raheb finished 7th
in the A race, followed by Evan Cooper in 9th and Andreas in 10th.
Mark Pohndorf – NJ TT Champ 2009 – 40+ in his own words
This was going to be the big one...the state TT championship
in Chatsworth! The course is 40k, pancake flat, and
devoid of anything technical. I finished 3rd in the
35+ in 2008 with a time of 55:29, over a minute and a half back from Steve Goldman,
who took the win for the third year straight. This year, we'd both
upgraded to the master's 40+.
I'd had my eye on this event for a while and really wanted
to win it. A few months back, Roger and looked at my
position on the bike and tweaked the set up to get me more
aero. The changes seemed to pay benefits in the earlier NJ time trials
- I felt and looked more aero yet didn't feel that I'd compromised my
ability to produce power. But the 40k was going to be the
real test. With nearly an hour of racing, all the
little tweaks, bobbles, and mistakes that might come out in the
wash in shorter events would have a chance to add up to some real
time.
After the Somerset TT, which was my first tt
win, Roger and I talked about how I felt and next steps. To
prepare for the demands of the state TT championship and to set
me up for the next phase of the season, he recommended a bit of a
mini training camp beginning about two weeks prior to the event.
This meant ramping up the hours on the bike - not much in terms
of intensity, but plenty of hours of endurance, often with a
little tempo kicker at the end. Then the week before the
event, the hours came down, the intensity ramped up, and most of
my time shifted to the tt bike.
The morning of the race was overcast and it started
raining just after I arrived. I did a brief trainer warm up in
the back of a conveniently placed tractor trailer to avoid the rain - maybe
25 minutes with two or three 1-2 min. hard efforts. In the nick
of time, the rain died off and I hit the road, fully kitted, to stay
loose before the start.
My plan for the day was to target 340 watts on the
way out, see how I felt, go higher if it came easy, and ramp it up on the
way back. I felt good on the way out, felt
fast, and passed a few guys. As a side note, for this
race I had borrowed an SRM so that I could race a borrowed set of
Zipps and still have a power reading to race by.
However, I couldn't be sure that the watts I was reading from the
SRM were in synch with the power tap that I've been training on
for the past two years - a couple percentage points
of variance could be significant. So I took the power
readings with a grain of salt and raced mostly according to
feel. To confuse matters more, I'd started an interval at the
line and the head unit was showing me distance but not elapsed
time. I'd hoped to at least be able to get a split at the
turnaround.
On the return trip, like last year, I started to bog down a
bit. The watts didn't come as easily - I anticipated
this. A few things came to mind. Don't panic! Stay
aero. Be the ball, Danny. I think this is where the mini-training
camp kicked in. An hour of tempo after 2 hours
of upper-endurance riding sets you up to suffer a bit. This
goal was worth suffering for! I really wanted to let loose
with a couple miles to go but was afraid I'd blow up and was suffering
a bit, so I waited for the final kilometer and hammered to the
line.
My power averaged just under 360 watts and my time
came in at 53:03, 2:26 faster than my time last year. Just before the
result was announced, Steve Goldman shook my hand and told me that I got
him by 8-9 seconds. My back-of-the-envelope calculation puts that at
about 373 feet, which over a 25 mile time trial is in my mind the
slimmest of margins. Steve is a warrior of a time trialist and a
great competitor, class act, the whole nine yards. His preparation
and meticulous attention to detail is mind-blowing. We'll be seeing
more of each other I'm sure and hopefully we'll spur each other on to
perform at our highest levels. In the meantime, I'm absolutely stoked
to have won the state time trial championship (m40+) for 2009!
Sponsor updates
Some new developments open the doors for new opportunities and
new synergies have already been created.
UVEX distribution is now being handled by Magura USA and we
have already reached agreements that will allow us to provide Finkraft
athletes and friends with special deals and in addition include Syntace
products to our e-commerce.
Syntace produces some of the lightest and strongest stems,
handlebars and seatposts.
Some other interesting plans benefitting Finkraft athletes are
in the works and once finalized, we will update you on them as well.
You can now purchase Finkraft rain jackets made by Adidas and
custom printed in the USA.
Roger designed the layout himself.
Also remember that you can go online for ordering Uvex and
Sportsbalm products and soon more (Syntace, etc.). All products will have a
client discount for Finkraft athletes.
WWW.FINKRAFTCOACHING.COM
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