Gabe Rinaldi - Year to Compete

[Gabe Rinaldi]

In this thread I will discuss competitions I plan on competing in this year as well as the result of those competitions.

On the current horizon:

2/11/07 - Indoor rowing competition - 2k meters on a concept 2 erg

http://www.peninsulajuniorcrew.org/PIRCinfo.htm

4/14/07 - Sea Otter Classic - beginner singlespeed men's class

http://www.seaotterclassic.com/


**** Note - if you want to share your competitions this year, then please start a new thread entitled "First Name Last Name - Year to Compete" and then I'll make it a sticky so that it stays at the top of this forum for the entire year.

[Gabe Rinaldi]

Yesterday I completed my first competition for the year. At the Peninsula Indoor Rowing Championships in Burlingame I ended up rowing a 2k in 6:47.3. This was good enough for 3rd place. I was 0.7 seconds slower than 1st place. In retrospect, I should have started my final sprint about 50 meters earlier. I think I had it in me to win. I'm happy with my performance since it was a PR for me, my first time competing, and I only rowed 62k meters in the last month to train for this event. From reading training logs of other competitors this is far less time spent training for this specific event. While I am by no means elite, I consider my performance possible due to my varied training with many different functional movements at high intensity (CrossFit).

Today marks day 1 of training for my mountain bike competition. I hope to get in a bike ride later this afternoon.

[Gabe Rinaldi]

Here's a pic of me about 10 seconds after the end of my race. This should be a thread - post a pic of you at the end of a 2k row or any hard workout.

[Lynette]

Hey at least you're standing...my legs burned so bad I couldn't stand up, ugh. BTW, great job Gabe, congratulations on the PR! And thanks for making me get out of my comfort zone and compete. We represented!

[Josie Douglas]

Great job you two!

Lynette, did you compete in the same competition as Gabe? What/how did you do?

[Gabe Rinaldi]

Thanks Josie!

Lynette did great, but she'll start a new thread to talk about her :)

[Gabe Rinaldi]

Yesterday I competed at the Sea Otter Classic. This was my 2nd mountain bike race ever. I raced the Sea Otter cross country race in my age group on a geared bike in 2001. This year I raced the men's sport / beginner singlespeed cross country race. My ride is a Niner Sir 9 that weighs 26.3 lbs. It's an XL with freeride hubs, an 8" rotor in front, DH carbon bars, heavy tires and other not so light stuff. I weigh 210 so it's set up to be very stout. I got near the starting line at 7:15 and wasn't really warmed up so I rode on the track for about 1/2 a mile. I made my way back towards the staging with 5-10 minutes until go time. I started in the last row of all the singlespeeders. I would have rather started closer towards the front. Next time I'll get to staging earlier. I worked hard on the paved portion of the race track to pass about 1/2 the field. I thought we climbed the course to exit onto the dirt, but we ended up going down a long paved road. Did we do a shorter course as singlespeeders? After further investigation it turns out the motorcycle leading us out on the start of the race took a wrong turn and took our entire race on the start of the road bike course from the day before. This means our course was .2-.5 miles shorter than everyone elses. It was also a bit less technical because we bombed down a paved road as fast as we could coast while the rest of the classes bombed down a much more fun singletrack section. Once we finally got to the singletrack I got stuck behind some slower riders. In 3 cases a rider in front of me got stuck or jacked up and had to unclip. I had to stop or pull to the side and unclip. In two of those cases the riders directly behind me ran right into me and knocked me down. I ended up twisting my seat on one of those occasions. I lost probably 3-5 minutes from this. I have a nice bruise on the side of my leg from some dudes tire who t-boned me. This sorta pissed me off because it was out of my control. As the field got spaced out it was much better. I enjoyed racing and the singlespeed class was an added challenge. I finished in 59th place out of 102 riders. My time to finish was 1:38:05. Afterwards the rain started coming down like cow piss on a flat rock. My wife was a trooper to come out so early so I decided not to subject her to the crappy weather. We packed it up and headed back to the South bay. My lower back is a bit sore today, but I'll be back to normal by tomorrow. This race has got me pumped up. I would like to ride a lot more and try to get more serious about racing. If I do get serious, then I definitely need a bike more setup for racing and less for burly training. Good times...

[Thom Downing]

Wow! 1:38, nice work! With this time you would have won every beginner category on suspension bikes too! And it ranks up there with what the pros were doing a lap in, next year you will be on the medal stand!

Congrats!

[Gabe Rinaldi]

My time is less impressive when you consider our entire singlespeed class cheated as we followed the lead motocycle down the wrong course. I'll be back next year in better shape.

[Gabe Rinaldi]

another shot from the race