TSB: 13
The other two times I tried doing this race after cross season and never had the fitness to stick with the group for more than a lap, this year had to quit racing cross and just been doing lots of miles.
Almost missed the race as I slept through the alarm for an hour, but made it there just in time, no warmup but just attacked with Jason(?) from Davis at the start to get the blood flowing - we were a little confused by where the neutral zone started so the ref ended up neutralizing us a couple of times. Oops.
Turns out five laps with the group fly by when you are having fun and you are trying to avoid people that are riding straight off the road (which turns out to be me in the end). Felt really great, but my calves started cramping about 75% through so I was pretty conservative after that. Finally on the last lap was just trying to move up and found myself on the front and there was a point where I could have just gone for it and caught the breakaways dangling off the front of the field but decided against this.
Anyways the last mile rolls around and there are forty something of us and I am trying to move up but every time I accelerate my hamstrings start to cramp, at one point one of them locks up but since the course is flattish at this point I manage to stay in the pack. I thought I might be thirtieth going into the final corner but it turns out I was about forty fifth, because I only ended up twenty ninth after making a little contact with a rider that died about twenty meters from the line and going off into a ditch (surprisingly this only affected my position by about two or three places, possibly I scared everyone off behind me...)
last lap, part 2 of 5:
a contributing factor to cramping at the end - goofing off too much at the front
last lap, part 3 of 5:
last lap, part 4 of 5:
last lap, part 5 of 5
T: 2:44:42
S: 37.2
C: 96
D: 102.3 km
Pavg: 159
Pnorm: 210
2 comments:
I started to cramp 1/2 through the 3rd lap (only had to do 3) too... someone else said the same thing. I wonder what it is about Snelling... we should call it Crampelling or something. LOL.
Yes, everyone that finished near me in the pack was saying they were cramping, too!
There's one theory that this happens if one's saddle is too high - though one risks knee issues if one lowers too much so one should be careful with that, and there's actually no hard science about cramping http://www.sportsscientists.com/search/label/muscle%20cramps
that series at least taught me to never point my toes with calf cramps! Someone recommended squirting your water bottle at the cramping muscles (might help with overheating) and that actually felt like it worked for me at Snelling for a bit but I had to save some fluid for drinking versus dousing myself!
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