Sacrifices and Spoils

A weekend of fast racing is behind me, and I'm looking forward to the next 26 days of training race-free.

The Rochester Criterium

Saturday evening I drove out to Rochester for the Twilight Criterium. Sue and our nephew Brian came with me to watch. Brian just got hit by a baseball pitch and broke his arm for, I think, the fourth summer in a row. We thought that watching a fast, national-level pro criterium under the lights would be a good distraction from the pain.

I realized a few miles from home that I'd forgotten to pack the trainer. I was running a bit tight on time to get there before registration closed, so there was no going back. Warming up would be tricky. I'd driven to the race last year when Sue raced and I watched, and the directions I'd downloaded from the Rochester web site seemed different. They said they led to a parking garage. I assumed that must be a mistake - after all, why would you lead a bunch of cyclists with bikes on the roof to a parking garage?

Sure enough, I followed them, winding around several blocks in the city and discovered that they did indeed terminate at the entrance to a parking garage. I could see the course so I could get my bearings, and I had an idea of where last year's parking lot might be. I drove on, fast, of course, because when you're lost, you want to get there fast.

I headed south, and took a left turn on intuition. It ended at a familiar intersection. There was a "road closed ahead" sign to the left, with just enough room to get around it. I sped past. Hey, it said "road closed ahead", not "road closed". Another block, another "road closed ahead" sign. There was no room to go around it and stay in my lane, but I could see the parking lot I wanted to get to. After a quick glance around for John Brown, I sped around the island in the middle of the road, into the oncoming lane, back over into my lane, and into the parking lot, safe and sound, and fifteen minutes before registration closed.

The Rochester Crit course has nine turns, including a sweeping hairpin into a downhill section. The uphill section past the finish line isn't steep, but it sure can eat at the legs. I found the course easy technically, despite what I originally thought from looking at the map of nine turns. The only high-speed corner is at the bottom of the long, straight downhill, and it's a gently sweeping turn, so even at high speed you can pedal through it. All the technical sections are either wide open or come at the top of gentle climbs so the speeds aren't very high.

I bummed time on a trainer from a friend who'd raced an earlier race, and got the heart rate up and the legs burning. The burn tells you it's working. Ninety-three of us lined up at the category 3/4 start line.

Past the finish line, the road narrows into a single lane with a curbed traffic island on the left. It then turns right, then sweeps left and back right again around a hairpin. Our field was already beginning to stretch out. Someone at the front was putting on the gas. In the back, you come around that hairpin doing under 20mph, and already the front of the pack is halfway down the hill doing over 30. Talk about your slinky! Ouch.

The pace stayed hot for several laps. The announcer kept remarking on how long the 93-man field was when it was stretched out single file. I noticed that my uphill wattage in the finishing straight was between 400 and 550 watts every lap around. I figured maybe it was best I not look.

I could hear Sue and Brian yelling at the hairpin turn where they'd set up to watch the race. I heard my name at other points along the course as well, and they kept me hanging on tight. After four laps, I glanced behind me. Nobody home. I'd started out near the middle of the pack, but I'd somehow drifted all the way to the back! Into the downhill turn, I pushed the pace and slingshot past several guys, took the left then right tight, and settled down as best I could with the cushion of quite a few guys behind me in the train.

Three or four more laps went by. A teammate of mine popped and disappeared. Another one suddenly sat up and pulled to the side after the hairpin, cracked. I jumped across the gap and got back on the pack. Up the hill again, and I looked behind me. Nobody home again! I realized I wasn't drifting back in the pack. The pack behind me was disappearing! For the entire race, I seemed to be mark the edge of a cliff. As soon as I got ahead of somebody, they'd drop off and get pulled by the officials.

About two-thirds through the race, I almost ended my race in spectacular irony. The pace suddenly eased past the finish line. I moved up on the outside and found a nice little space to tuck in between the pack and the traffic island's curb. A guy behind me yelled, "Watch the curb, idiot!" I had plenty of space to move in, and did so, no problem. I glanced back and said, "Yeah, I got my eye on it." That was right about the time that the curb edged in another five inches or so, something I'd failed to notice on my previous laps. My left pedal came slamming down on top of it, vaulting my bike up into the air a few inches. My tires came safely back down to earth and I kept my mouth shut for the remainder of the race.

During the last lap, I managed a late surge to move up nine spots from dead last to 31st. We finished with only 40 of the original 93 left in the pack. During the race, I felt bad about being at the back, but after the finish, I felt pretty good about having held on and beaten 62 guys. What didn't feel good were my saddle bits, my nether regions, the creases between my legs and the "boys". I'd spent so long spinning on the rivet under high power, I'd chaffed off some skin down below.

Sue, Brian and I strolled off to the Golden Port restaurant with my friends from the area, Maria and Adam, for some dim sum. I sucked down rice, eel, chicken, vegetable dumplings, crab, wasabi, seaweed salad, and some kind of sweet red bean desert pocket. Good food! Brian was a real trooper. There's no way I would have tried eel at age 13, but he was in there swinging.

We headed back to the racecourse to watch the second half of the men's pro race. Their pace was obviously very fast this year, as their huge field suffered the same fate that mine did. By the finish, the announcer was noting that the pros had whittled off every last amateur cat 1 and 2 in the field. Friends of mine who I consider super strong were in this field and were cracked wide open. Amazing to watch.

The Owasco Lake Flyer

Sunday morning, I headed out to Auburn for the Owasco Lake Flyer. Around 200 people, I'd guess, of abilities ranging from fast tourist to decent cat 2 lined up. I spent the half-mile controlled start skimming up the shoulder of the road to get in the front. There was an early solo break. I knew the guy and I knew the horsepower in the pack could suck him back in with little difficulty when we decided to go. The first little hill loomed on the horizon, and someone up front lit a match. The field strung out and the solo break came back fast. A small group got a good gap on the climb as the rest of the pack slowed a bit. The major players sat in, waiting for the second half of the race where most of the climbing is, and the gap widened.

About halfway through the race, I heard the telltale, "Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" followed by metal and carbon hitting pavement coming from a ways behind me. No one was seriously injured, but the pileup would delay a couple of the major players who would catch up to the front only much later in the race,

I was able to hang onto the head of the peloton until about half way up the climbing sections when it got a bit steeper. I settled into a rhythm with a teammate of mine who's been climbing around my ability recently. After a few more minutes, I could feel my legs getting that feeling like I could push them beyond limits, and as I concentrated, my breathing began to relax a bit and opened up. I started pushing bigger gears, watched the watts on my PowerTap pop up a bit, and watched the group in front of me get bigger as the guys I'd been riding with got smaller and disappeared. I grabbed a wheel in a group of five other guys as they crested the climb, then sat in to rest briefly. Oddly enough, I then felt like I was one of the stronger guys in the group and we pulled hard to try to catch groups in front of us.

The last few miles of the course are an endless series of ups and downs, so any differences in ability became obvious as even small groups like ours split apart. I finished sprinting against an up-and-comer, one of the high school kids who attends the local Thursday night races. As his 17 year-old legs started to pull away from me on the finishing rise, my 35 year-old left calf threatened to cramp. It's done that before and I know that if I keep pushing, it'll cramp up and be sore for several days, so I sat up and brought home 20th place overall solo.

Everyone always seems so much friendlier at non-USCF races, and this was no exception. Everyone congratulated everyone else for doing their best, and everyone chatted over free food and drink and schwag for quite some time after the race. There were door prizes for the lucky, and awards deep into age categories for those who managed to be just a little bit speedy for their age.

Let the Healing and Suffering Begin

With some healthy doses of Bag Balm and Gold Bond, things down south are feeling better and I'm ready to embark on three solid weeks of some hard training. I felt some form beginning to come on over the weekend, and with some good training it'll keep coming along.

See you on the road!