bicycle.net -- cycling news, product reviews, original essays, podcasts & video :: Tour of California 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Toulca Lake, California resident, Lauren Jacobsen, has won the UCI Track Cycling Masters World Championships and set a new world record. Representing the USA and racing for cycling team NOW MS Society, Lauren won the gold medal in the women’s age 50-54 500 meter Time Trial on October 16th, at the Dunc Gray Velodrome in Sydney Australia. Lauren set a new world record of 39.704 beating the former world record of 40.202 set in Colorado Springs in 2002. At 52 years old, Lauren, is the first woman in this division to ever break the 40-second mark. Her record setting time was almost a second and a half faster than Donna Smith, the current USA Nationa1 Champion and silver medalist at the World Championships. Jacobsen started cycling a short 3 years ago, where cycling coach Antony Galvan, identified Jacobsen as having potential as a sprinter.
Galvan worked with Jacobsen from May to October in preparation for the title. When she is not racing her bike in circles, Lauren Jacobsen is a residential interior designer in Los Angeles.

As my coach, Antony Galvan, and I strolled up to the race official’s table at Australia’s Dunc Gray Velodrome to see the start list for the Women’s 50-54 500TT, there it was at the top of the page, marked with a number 1. My name, first to race.
With a somewhat surprised look on my face I said to my coach “I’m first to race? Really?” His response was “ this is the best position you could be in”. And so it was.

We have been training together for 2 years now and it is with rather vivid accuracy I remember our first few training sessions. I had hired him to help me gain some endurance for recreational rides and improve my rather pathetic bike handling skills.

On about the second or third training session, he told me I was going to get up out of the saddle and sprint for about 50 meters. He told me what to do and how to approach a sprint. Off I went like a shot, zig-zagging all over the bike path, as he put it “ like a chicken with its head cut off”. From that point I was adorned a new nick name: “Turbo Chicken.”

Swish pan 2 years later, (hey, I live in the film capital of LA) my coach decides we will see just how fast I am or I am not, with my first timed 500 effort out at the Encino Velodrome. By now I am better at controlling my bike but I’m thrown literally a new curve: sprinting on a banked oval track.

I pedaled as fast as I could go, then rolled in to the in field after I had recovered thinking “oh my god, it was absolutely glacial, like 2 minutes right”? My coach said” let me explain something; you just did a 45:95 effort. You have crappy wheels, a baggy jersey, no concept of track racing, so you are all over the sprint lane, a road helmet, no power or speed work for sprinting, in essence nothing in your favor and you rolled in at 45:95. Chicken, you’re going to the World Championships”!

Collecting my gaping mouth off the in-field, I went home and looked up the world record for my division. It was 40:202. For those of you that race against a clock where the race is won or lost by one thousandth of a second you can appreciate the Herculean effort of taking off 6 full seconds. Since I had no concept of what that meant, I jauntily pedaled into my next 6 months of sprint specific training.

Let me help you visualize sprint training: you do what my coach proudly recalls from HIS sprint training as “The Way”. Yes, by all means, ask the question, I did. What is The Way?

Well, when you ask my coach” how do I win a World Championship”? The answer you get is “this is The Way”. It‘s a bleed at the eye socket set of maximum effort intervals where you exist somewhere between throwing up (in a hopefully nearby trash can) and or passing out. I quickly learned to show up with an empty stomach or you will get one anyway!

Each week, each race, I cut time off my 500TT. Finally, I hit the magic number 40 seconds. Now, I just needed to put it all together in one perfect ride and I would hit sub 40 seconds, my goal for Sydney. This miraculous time cut of 6 seconds in just 6 months.
Can I get some oos and ahs for my coach Antony Galvan! Hello, he holds the current World Record for the 30-34 KiloTT. It just don’t get any better than that.

And now a word from the Master himself:

“I will add a very interesting tidbit of info to this story: when we arrived in Sydney, other athletes made their way straight to the track to get all “ready”. I purposely had Lauren NOT ride the track. We just did some leisurely spins on our road bikes and talked it through. Even as her event approached we were outside the velodrome riding calmly and discussing what she had and how she was going to deliver it…the work was done before we left California. It was all a mental game the minute we landed down under and major props go to our girl for buttoning down an air-tight mental game that was THE REASON for her success. THAT is the sign of a true champion. I couldn’t be more proud”.

So, as we leave the officials table at Dunc Gray. Antony says, “no worries (remember, we’re in Sydney folks), you just lay down a world record and trust me, you will mess up the brains of your competition so badly, they won’t be able to think!”

Without a moment of hesitation, without an ounce of nervous tension, I came out of that start gate with no other goal than to hit a record. As I crossed the finish line the time came up on the board and the new world record was announced 39.704.
It very officially messed up everyone’s brain.

For me, all I could think was thank god I did my job and delivered. I was unable to feel any other place than first, starting 6 months ago. There were no options. I now totally understand that zone athletes get into and need to get into, You cannot have any doubts or hesitations, you just see the win…that is all.

So now I’m back in the USA, collecting big time congrats from all. It is a great feeling.
I owe my coach, I don’t know…a house? How do you even compensate someone for all their personal time and focus? Antony went ballistic when I crossed the finish line, screaming, jumping, crying, howling and any other human emotion possible that one could elicit in this kind of moment.

We have shared a journey that many will never experience,
I have been extremely lucky.
I have also been fortunate to sport a pair of rock’n fast get-a-way sticks. Yeah babe!!!

WC Chicken