What is Cat 5?

I looked over my posts and realized I've never explained what "Cat 5" actually means.  It's obviously a reference to cycling but that won't help most folks.  Cat 5 is a bike racing category with the US Cycling Federation.  It also happens to be the lowest level they have.  Everyone is required to start at Cat 5 to gain experience.  Historically, as in about 30 years ago, the USCF only had 5 categories; Pro and Categories 1-4.  Everyone use to start at Cat 4.  They noticed that some of the novices in the Cat 4 ranks were the cause of most of the wrecks that were taking place.  Most of these were due to a lack of racing experience so they added one more category, Cat 5.  It's basically the training wheels version of bike racing, hence the tongue-in-cheek title of my blog. 

The primary purpose of bike racing is to have fun but eventually folks become more competative and try to win.  If you do well enough you are allowed to "Cat up" or move up from one category to another category.  There is a very low bar to cat up from Cat 5 to Cat 4.  All I need to do is finish 10 sanctioned races.  In the meantime however, they expect you've gained valuable experience.  Hopefully I finish more than half of my first 10 upright. 

That's the only real easy promotion.  From then on your promotions are merit based.  At each race you accumulate points for your place in the field and for winning "Prime" laps (pronounced "preem").  These are typically every 5 laps or so which escalates fan interest and keeps the race pace up.  In higher category racing there are actually cash and other prizes provided by sponsors.  Winning obviously gives you the most points.  Once you accumulate enough points you can move from Cat 4 to Cat 3.  Once you get to Cat 3 the only real way to promote is to get results, meaning winning races or at least placing.  Cat 3 is also when cyclists form teams, train together and begin to strategize before and during races.  Cat 1 cyclists have team sponsors and get alot of their gear for free.  They put most all of their waking hours into two things, cycling and their job which is usually cycling friendly like working at a bike shop.  I would love to work in a bike shop but I would be worthless.  My job isn't built around my cycling, my cycling fills in the nooks and cranny's of my week and is about fourth or fifth down my life priority list.  Every once in a while I'll see online training schedules for "the time crunched cyclist" that list "only" 8-10 hours of training per week.  If I had 8-10 hours of training time I think that would be great but then I'd probably want 15-20.  I currently get about 4-6. 

I just need to get enough training to hang with the pack for 40 minutes and finish upright. 

So it begins

So it's been about a week since I started and I've done a few things.  I've done a few days worth of abs that resulted in severe pain particularly around the bottom of my rib cage.  This should go away as I get more used to the program.  I am using the Ab Ripper video that is a part of the P90X program.  If you haven't done this before, I dare you.  It's only about 16 minutes but if you can do all the reps without significant abdominal cramping I'll be very impressed.

I've also ridden my rollers three times for 30 minutes each.  My legs are much more open to pedalling than my abs are to crunches.  My abs protested for several days.  Rollers are a bit easier than riding on the road.  I've been around 23-24 mph this week.  When I'm in better shape this goes up to 26-27.  Feel free to subtract about 5 mph to estimate what it would be riding solo out on the road.  That said, roller speeds are very similar to what you should expect when riding in a group.  When you're riding with 30 people the air just moves right along with you.  Aerodynamics is wildly helpful.  Even if it is only just a few riders, if you're in the right spot it can take a ton of strain off your legs saving them for the sprint finish or allow you to hang with a fast moving peleton.  During the Seagull Century in Maryland a couple of months ago my son illustrated this concept quite nicely.  He hadn't trained much leading up to the ride.  He had only put in about four weeks worth of riding with his longest ride topping out at about 35 miles.  During one section we were with a fairly speedy group. For 12 miles we averaged over 25 mph, a speed we could not have maintained by ourselves.   It was a combination of aerodynamics, adrenaline and fear.  He bonked at about 80 miles so I pulled and at some points literally pushed him the rest of the way.  We finished in 5:03:30.

I'm about to let my new secret weapon out of the bag.  My World From a Bycicle is an extremely helpful resource for a budding racer.  David Henderson gives me hope.  He's a very high end rider but is also over 40.  If he can do what he does, I can make it to Cat 4...Cat 3?  We'll see.

I've never put100% into cycling training so I've never been close to what I'd consider to be my cycling peak.  For a 41 year old with 4 kids, a hectic job and a great wife, I squeeze training in when I can.  I'm not one of those guys that gets up at 4 am to get in a two hour spin before work.  During the summer I usually get 1 hour rides on Tuesday and Thursday evenings if my wife lets me go and a 2 hour ride on Saturday mornings.  These are usually all solo rides unless my son goes with me.  Four hours a week of solo riding isn't going to put me on the podium so I'll have to be creative.