CTL: 116 TSB: -6 Sand will have to do until we get some mud or snow, making an angel
Racing with 135 other crossers really doesn't feel like racing. The main opportunities for passing came in the first minute and a half of uphill, and the rest of the course was very twisty and slightly rolling so not much separation happening, I think I only saw maybe twenty other riders the whole race, first when I passed them in the first 90 seconds and then when they all passed me back over the course of the rest of the race. I suppose I could race more aggressively and fight for position, but for me that would be kind of an overly serious tactic for a category C race when not a whole lot is at stake. Still could improve on the pacing on the flatter sections.
Touched the camera on the next to last lap to make sure it was pointed in the right direction and managed to turn it off...maybe the first ten minutes is interesting to see what one lap looked like.
CTL: 115 TSB: -3 This week cut my Saturday pre-race ride down to fifty easy miles so let's see if it has any effect on the race.
I don't know why but today's race has a much smaller turnout of 30 versus the 100 plus at the Pilarcitos 2009 debut. It's a shame because the Soquel High School course could handle a much larger field with longer wide stretches and more passing opportunities.
Slot in on the second row of four instead of fifth row of ten. This makes a huge difference because one can actually go as hard as one wants to go instead of having to wait for the opportunity to move up and then have three guys fighting for one foot of trail.
Make it halfway through the first lap with the first group of five riders, which is kind of surreal for me since I don't think that's ever happened. The juniors that started thirty seconds behind us start passing us within three minutes! The elastic between me and the front group snaps at the end of the lap as Lee passes me and I can't hang onto the top six. I am able to maintain this position for the rest of the race. Lee unfortunately flats and has to DNF and another rider in front of me blows with two to go and I move up to fourth and stay there, with Dwayne starting to close the gap from just behind on the last set of hairpin turns but running out of course to catch me so I get fourth. I think that's the highest placing I've ever gotten in a cross race with more than four people.
CTL: 115 TSB: -9 This time I bring a video camera, but brought the wrong memory card, no matter because finishing mid pack is probably not that interesting to watch. Brought only the mountain bike this year after racing it last year on the cross bike and fully realizing the limits of my bike handling skills or lack thereof... My preparation is similiar to a Morgan, Lee, and a few others, we all did Levi's Gran Fondo less than 24 hours earlier. Surprisingly this has no effect on my result - last year I ended up sprinting against Brian Brooks for our placing and we repeat it this year, with him reversing the order of last year, finishing a place ahead of me this time with me in 55th / 107.
Have a good 90 seconds of racing when I am close to the lead racers at the start of the race
then the camera starts pointing down and my fortunes go with it as I crash and take a divot out of my leg. Am able to finish the race mid pack but have trouble walking for a week.
On the plus side I mostly survived my first 2009-2010 cross race, still need to work on pacing...
If I'm going to drive 200 miles, I'm going to stay an extra day to try a race I've never done before... It's a flat L, the course is different from prior years due to construction with a very short final straight so position in the last corner is pretty much everything. The main difficulty today is the heat, it's pretty oppressive after ten AM. Next time I need to bring an ice chest to sit in...
Was originally going to do the 4/5 and the 35+ 4/5 race, but my teammate Mark emailed me and asked if I was in Chico so I switched to the 3/4 and 35+ 3/4/5 races so I could race with someone, always more fun with someone you know.
Skipping the 4/5 race turns out to be a stroke of good fortune since half the field is crashed out and DNF's. This also delays the rest of the AM races and shortens our 3/4 race by fifteen minutes.
I am just going to try to help out where I can, Mark is already pretty good at positioning himself and sprinting so my primary help to him was probably over when I rented a hotel room!
The race is pretty hard from the gun and we drop quite a few folks, almost half the field. It's strung out for most of the race. There's a lull towards the end and I see Mark sitting around tenth instead of his usual fourth or fifth so I move up towards the front to up the pace a bit and he moves up to, it turns out the rest of the race will have no more lulls. In fact I am last in the pack at about 20th and we go so fast into the final turn I ease up because there's no point in sprinting and it's much faster than I would have considered going into it! But it's all worth it as Mark get's second, he said he entered the last turn in second and sort of boxed himself in against the rider in first and could not accelerate until it was too late.
We have a long three or four hours until our second race. I probably spent too much time outside because I felt exhausted by the time we started. This race felt much harder than the first and Mark confirmed this but the data shows it as about the same or a little easier so the heat took a toll on both of us. Three riders escape mid race. I feel miserable and consider quitting but will soon find out what miserable is. Didn't realize the riders were off the front until it was too late.
We drop almost half the field in this race, too. Lap cards come out and I just hang on for dear life at the back of the pack. One disadvantage to being lower on the bike than most of the riders is that one's view is limited when a larger rider is directly in front of you. This lesson is served up when I have about one second of braking time when the rider in front of me swerves abruptly to avoid an accident and I brake hard but am unable to stop in time and hit Gino who has stopped for a rider who crashed in front of him. I guess that's what I get for making fun of people who run into the back of me at full speed...On the plus side this gives Gino a genuine reason to get a free lap since I can vouch for him. I am not too badly hurt, it does take four weeks for my elbow to fully heal, but I join Gino near the start finish for my free lap and we rejoin with six to go.
After a few laps we catch Todd Manley who was off the front in the break, leaving two others still off. I counter with three laps to go. At first I just accelerated to get to the front and up the pace but no one responded so instead of braking I just kept going, at least someone else would have to chase me and Mark would get a free ride. Unfortunately I only lasted two laps so the pack gobbled me up but Mark did great again in the finale and got third for his second podium on the day.
Takes five hours to get to here if one leaves at 6PM on a Friday evening so next time leaving at either 4PM or 8PM to see if traffic is any better...
I am here to help others out so I just need to carry water bottles and offer my wheels up. Kind of fun to not have too much responsibility. The center line rule is somewhat strictly enforced, from what I remember, lots of people went over, but from the results only my teammates got relegated. Since the course is not very challenging and only three to four riders fit across a lane the pace is glacially slow even with sixty plus riders. At one point someone flats and I think it's our sprinter so I turn around and go back to help out but it's not so I have to turn back around make up a minute gap or so, and the pack is going so slow I am able to close it easily.
Based on what has happened in the first two laps, I think one will have to go to the front as early as possible since we only get to use the full width of the road with one kilometer to go. I start moving up when I heard someone say one kilometer to go. It turns out they were lying, so we had a lot farther to go but I end up at the front. Since I am not here for my own placing I bide my time near the front. When I can see we have about one kilometer to go I get a bit worried because none of my teammates are near me and I really don't want to lead anyone else out, so I start fading backwards to try and get close to a teammate. The field gets to about 500 meters to go and I am around 20th and still no teammates so I have to fall back on plan B and start getting position back and sprinting but only manage twelfth.
The race ended up being so easy I wished I had just lead the field out for the last lap to get a good work out...the normalized power for 2.5 hours ending up being lower than the typical flat criterium average power.
T: 2:30:20 D: 87.4 km S: 34.8 km Pavg: 129 Pnorm: 171
For the last race of the omnium the top riders get callups, and so does the lantern rouge - proof -
There will be a race within the race, the three omnium riders are just going to watch each other, and today's larger field will make today's race more interesting - a lot of these riders should be fresh from not having race the prior two days and there are a couple of interesting hairpin turns and a nice hill to boot.
I am lucky enough to have three teammates today. Very early in the race disaster strikes the lead omnium rider as he gets entangled in the fencing in one of the hairpins and has to quit. I take a look around the reduced field and realized the second place rider is nowhere to be seen so I tell my teammates to relax and we can go for the win instead of just placing me higher than the other two omnium riders.
Peter spends about 80% of the race off the front in a long breakaway. Sam is initially close to him but can't close the gap and comes back to the pack. One lap after Peter is off, the second place rider in the omnium Rich shows up! It turns out we dropped him early and he clawed his way back - at this point I was just drafting Josh and hanging onto the back of the pack - if I could have *and* known I would have worked to make the pack go faster! Try to communicate the new situation to Sam but after the race it turns out he didn't hear me but am still able to use Sam to move up towards the end of the race, and Anthony gives me helpful advice to save some energy.
Anyways, Rich and I spend the rest of the race watching each other, move up and back in tandem. Peter gets brought back with one to go. I position myself near the front on the hill near the second bridge and Peter has one last burst to take us to the front but this leaves the steep part of the hill and I tire a bit and get swarmed. Fortunately for me, Rich only makes it a couple of riders ahead of me by the bottom of the hill/hairpin and I am able to sprint past him and put several other riders between us on the finish straight to get seventh and win the overall for the omnium.
It turns out that only three of us from the time trial are racing the criterium today. The other two riders got first and second in the time trial so I am about ten points behind. Half of the primes are for omnium points and the other half are for cash and prizes, and of course only the three of us planning on doing all three events are interested in the omnium points. I have a huge advantage literally and figuratively in that Peter shows up to do this crit and a later crit, we take turns leading each other out for primes, and Peter takes one solo and we end up winning all of them. The field is pretty small at twenty three so it's pretty easy to change position, I thought I had enough in me to lead out the last lap and a quarter (just to keep things reasonably safe) but only lasted a quarter lap, faded, then followed Anthony to move up a bit and thought I had beat the other two contenders for the omnium when I got pipped at the line by the first place finisher from yesterday for ninth and ended up tenth with the second place tt rider, Rich, finishing in eleventh. Oh well, I still made up ground on both riders to make things close
Wasn't trying to peak for this but feel sick on both Wednesday and Thursday and don't ride much, a little less fitness on race day but should be fresh but feeling like I have a cold or allergy attack. If I had not paid for the omnium and the hotel would definitely be staying home, but here goes...
Only my second time trial of the year, first was Madera where I was feeling kind of sick and was, and today, where I feel a little under the weather again.
The course is on a widish bike path, with three small overpasses and the overpass turnaround as the main difficulties.
I shouldn't expect much, was aiming to at least get close to my 20 minute power for the whole event, taking into account racing adrenaline. Manage to do this for the outbound leg and totally blow up on the inbound leg. On the way back I can barely open my mouth because of the heat and lack of moisture, at one point it gets so dried out it's stuck close.
At least I know how I can make myself look like Tyrone Biggums.
T: 25:17 S: 39.5 C: 83 Pavg: 261 Pnorm: 265 Postive split the course with power, not a good sign since there was a slight headwind on the way back for the earlier riders.
CTL: 120 TSB: 1 Strictly by the numbers I should be in great shape for this race but I feel pretty sick. But I preregistered so off to the city I go.
Or I should say I thought I preregistered. When I get home, the race registrations for today's crits are still in my shopping cart from three months ago...
Show up and get the last open spot in the 35+ 4/5 race and waitlist myself for the E4 race. The race is pretty easy so I wait for the last couple of laps to move up. While I am passing one rider, he accelerates, and when he moves to the inside on a turn I make the mistake of drafting too closely and not anticipating his next move which is to swerve out of the apex, from watching the video he boxed himself in a small area next to the curb and when he swerved out I got pushed to the outside and slowed and this was enough change for the rider behind me to run right into me. I still think I could have done well except at this point I was dragging a riderless bike behind me in my rear wheel. Pretty frustrating, sick and still in it till one and a half laps to go. Oh well.
T: 40:46 S: 40.3 C: 100 Pavg: 180 Pnorm: 216
Wait patiently at registration area for the waiting list to get called up and I don't have high hopes as I am 17th. But I get the last number! This gives me about two minutes to warmup, or in reality, about quarter of the race. There is a big crash halfway through, I bridge solo from behind the crash. This turns out to be a waste since they are unsure about when they can get the injured riders off the course, our race is stopped and restarted. Two riders off the front before the crash get a little bit bigger lead, but no matter, probably wouldn't have changed things much. With two laps to go help move Jay up a bit from the back but maybe a little too early? Anyways we are top ten going into the next to last corner when there is another accident in the middle of the corner, I touch the brakes and start sliding right towards the riders, should have just aimed for the hole shot, and have to slow considerably to avoid becoming a crash victim. At least I got close to finishing.
I should feel pretty good according to the numbers but I think I am getting a cold or allergies are acting up because when we start racing, can't do anything except sit in and wait for the finales, and totally blow during the last race. 3/4 Scratch Race
Feel decent after a long day in the sun yesterday at Winters, but takes a long time to get comfortable. Two riders get off early. I lost track of them so I asked around and people said they got caught so I didn't worry. Huge mistake. Late in the race I could hear the announcer talking about their lead. Racing for third at this point, and the teammates of one of the riders are sitting on the front dutifully doing tempo so I start trying to up the pace, too little too late. At least keep it safer than it was, saved too much at the end on the hill, should have surged again once I caught the leaders of the pack, instead got swarmed on the descent, ended up tenth in field sprint.
My role is to attack and see if anything sticks, carry bottles for others, and regroup after the hill. When we signed up there were only twenty in the field and half were teammates but at the start the field is full with the addition of some representation from Safeway/Morgan Stanley and many others so someone who does well today will earn their t-shirt.
Peter goes off first, and gets such a big gap, no one even bothers to nibble. So when Josh goes and comes back, I surge multiple times and take a few riders with me, but nothing sticks. Then we hit the rollers and I just hang on for the ride. Pick up a fourth, neutral bottle in the feedzone from Lei but then hand it back to him because my pockets are full. The only difficulty on the course is the one constant grade on the final hill and when a few teammates are off the pace I wait for them and we start time trialing on the flat section. Unfortunately one is having wheel hit his brake pad so he has to give up after about 30 minutes, right when our field comes into view. For the next section I trade pulls with Lei and another rider until we get within 200 meters and I can't keep up. Lei gets almost to the group at the feedzone when he flats, and the rider he was with flats as well. Then I catch Jay who is working on his second flat. There is a very bad pattern starting here...
Luckily Mark's SO Amy volunteers to hand up water in the feed zone, on the second (and third laps for the really hard men), it's really nice to have something cold.
At this point there is no chance for me to catch up and help anybody so I give my fourth still full bottle to Jon after the hill so someone finishing the third lap will have some liquids, and roll to the finish where I catch Mark who gave up his wheel to Roger who flatted. Roger finishes the day in style by winning the field sprint for second.
Come into this race with a lot of pressure, lots of folks know I won this last year so I am not counting on the same tactics working. Many teammates this year, too. Not as big a team presence as in the past so I think this works against us, folks race pretty negatively overall, and we finish about five minutes slower than last year when I attacked like mad in the first half and got dropped in the second half.
As the race progresses, start to lose more and more teammates to flats and mechanicals, but we still manage a good leadout to control the pace for the last few miles. We get to the bridge that is a minor choke point and we get swarmed a little but I think I should have been more patient, and not gone with the early moves - maybe too many people watched my video of last year and were going to try to imitate it. One of the riders I am watching is Michael, who has had a great 2009 season, and when he jumps I respond immediately. Erik S. and Mike S. are there, too.
Surprisingly to me and Michael, he fades after about twenty seconds and when we catch him, Mike S. and Erik S. go again. We have not yet even gotten to the underpass, and this is really not where I want to go, but I don't want to give up without a fight. In retrospect I should have let someone else chase them down. But I surge again. Mike S. fades. I crawl back onto Erik's wheel, then before we reach the corner, he surges, and I have trouble getting on his wheel. In the back of my head I am thinking, wow, Erik is going to win. But as soon as we reach the corner, riders start passing me until finally it's me and Erik staggering across the line for tenth and eleventh place. This is disappointing for me because I feel like I let my teammates down.
Today I am to just relax and sit in and come out to play at the end. It's helpful to have the teammates to make that easy! Many attacks go repeatedly in the gently rolling hills until finally one sticks with a teammate, which takes off a lot of performance pressure because he is guaranteed a podium spot for finishing.
Now all I have to do is wait for the end game. Still seven Davis riders in what is left of the pack and they hammer on the rollers before the final flat sections. It's fun going this fast, though I should have taken it easier and not followed each acceleration so closely, and just let gravity do most of the work. The final straightway doesn't got exactly as planned, got a lot of help, but used up the leadout too early. Then I misjudged the distance to the finish from the final corner. Entered the turn in fourth position, got passed by one rider, then the two riders directly in front of me were so big I did not notice the gap had gotten quite large to the other two riders. This would not have been a problem except for the fact that the final straight of 200+ meters was up an overpass and down, and I noticed this on the downhill and my advantage against these much larger riders was behind me on the uphill... Salvaged what I could and got third in the field sprint. The last overpass is so close to the finish line I should have just gone with every single attack at that point, hesitated and relied on using the draft too much. Also, with a 50 front chain ring need an 11 for the 40+mph downhill sprint since I don't practice sprints over 120 rpm.
My third time doing this race, and got better results each time, hoping for a charm the third time, too.
Just was not to be, made a lot of mistakes. First off, conditions were harder for me than in past years, and I needed to bring a lot more hydration and neglected this during the race, might have gotten dehydrated while staging. Next, went with the surges up Patterson Pass. That was probably the silliest because the leaders went over the top in about the same time as they have the past two years when I was with the group. This time I got popped off with about one or two kilometers to go. When I got dropped and could see the pack of twenty five up the road, resolved to catch on or blow, and settled into a rhythm, concentrating intently on the white line. A little too intently as I didn't look far up the road and when the white painted line turned into a four inch curb I veered off into the deep gravel on the right. The smart thing to do at this point would have been to stop and just get back on the road but of course, I didn't do this, I tried to bunny hop from the gravel, over the curb, back into the road and I didn't clear it and took a tumble at five miles per hour. Doh. Duanefrom VC Monterey kindly asked if I was OK, mostly just embarrassed and set to work with Duane and another rider to try and catch folks after the descent.
Then, after we caught one rider, I felt a thump, thump for a short time from my front tire, almost stopped but when my tire stayed inflated I kept going. Then I could have sworn the same thing happened on the rear.
Did not put two and two together at this point, but my legs started feeling like lead going through the parking area and almost quit but I was only a few minutes back after one lap.
Then I totally blew the second time up Patterson and could not even hold tempo the rest of the race. By Midway I could feel my front and rear tires getting squishy. Now I just wanted to finish upright. Thankfully Anthony came along from a different field and shared some extra water with me. Then to add insult to injury, my left inner quad cramped on the last hill and I stopped to massage it out, got started again, and was thinking I could finish by just pedaling my right leg and then my right leg cramped. A few more minutes passed before I could get started again, and barely finish the race on two tires with only about ten PSI each,thanks to a couple of goathead thorns.
The four corner industrial park course with two long and wide front and back stretch and shorter, narrower straights between turns one and two and bewteen turns three and four.
Very big field. I'm supposed to sit in and help out at the end. This goes well except for a few unfortunate accidents along the way, including one which requires an ambulance so we neutralize for a few laps and finally have the officals stop and restart us for the last nine laps. Everyone on the team is still in it. At one point I mistake Darren for Josh and offer to help him move up, oops, at least I helped a teammate! Then with 1.5 laps to go, the rider I was there to help out has to stop for a crash but I miss this and have to improvise. I can see a train of teammates on the front about four rows ahead so just sit back and watch. Then they get swarmed and it's a bit chaotic - at this point I just want to finish upright and am closer to the front than the back so just start moving up.
With two turns to go, Eddie from SJBC goes for it. The last part of the race is just foobar because I can see I have to ride the brakes but can't move up because it's rider to rider around me, so we have a little more chaos to top off the day as one rider clips a pedal and the rider behind him start tumbling across the road in the corner. I have to tap the brakes and start steering away - this is enough to separate the front eighteen from us that are caught behind the accident and that's the race. Start sprinting just to get back up to speed and finish the race.
A little less fitness and am coming in about three kilos heavier versus 2008. Oddly, I end up with almost same final result. I would do anything to have that fitness again, well anything except eat and drink less and train more. I kid. A little.
Temps are very cool due to overcast skies, and even a little fog/rain. The course is a little bit different than previous years, instead of one out and back there are now two out and backs, the first out and back is more of a circle and back, and the second doesn't go almost to the end ( guess the whole road wasn't available ) but the one three to four minute hill is still the main defining feature.
Last year blew up on the one big climb, and was able to go pretty hard each time on the climb, not so much on the other parts. This year, tried to meter out the effort on the climb, and about about fifteen guys rode away very gradually. Then it was Ernie, Mike, some other guy and I, ten seconds back of the pack and figured we wold catch them no problem after the top, but Ernie and the other guy killed it on the undulating section before the finish and bridged up, and I could only watch. Worked with Mike and TT'ed and we got within 50 meters after Mike took a long pull and I didn't want to jump and leave Mike behind so I tried to TT both of us up and could not do it, so close. We ended up losing about 30 seconds for each 10.5 mile lap so with two turn arounds, we could see the group for about twenty five miles of chasing which was a very tiny carrot. We only catch one of the about fifteen riders in front of us, Ernie, who despite a thirty pound weight advantage stayed with the group longer than Mike or I. We end up going into match sprint mode for the finish with Ernie leading us out for fun. . T: 1:57:28 C: 92 S: 30.3 Pavg: 182 Pnorm: 226 D: 59.5 km
Gave myself an extra hour to get hour for traffic and needed two so got there with only fifteen minutes to spare. There's a theme running here that I need to break, since there were no bathrooms or portapotties for the first couple of hours I had to race with a full bladder...
No warmup meant I felt like dropping out after ten minutes but forced myself to stay in there - it always feels harder than it really is. I can see Josh and Mitch well positioned at the front near the man child from VOS, barely hanging onto the back of the field, a couple of times I am behind someone who is dropped and have to bridge back up and that almost breaks me but the pack goes slow enough in the technical sections that I can catch up again.
Finally with two laps to go try to move up to help and am thwarted by being almost last to begin with, luckily some gaps open up on the last lap so I can move up, almost get to the front and hesitate - should I just lead it out and hope the teammates can get over or what, and the time I spend thinking uses up the window of opportunity and we are on the finish stretch before I can do anything else and just sprint in for a 15th or so.
CTL: 117 TSB: 5 Gave myself an extra hour to travel to San Rafael through San Francisco traffic and it turned out to be not enough, started worrying a little bit when I had thirty minutes to show up at the race and was still on the Golden Gate Bridge. With five minutes to spare, change into the cycling clothes, and get to the course, Josh helpfully pins the number on so I don't have to do it during the race and my warmup consists of the first twenty minutes of the race where I get to consider the sin of not warming up and struggle to hang in the pack. The course is the same one used for the *daytime* San Rafael Crit, a long, slightly uphill drag for the start /finish, a short hill (the steepest section of the course) between turns one and two, a long, slightly downhill drag between turns two and three and a short hill between turns three and four to the finish straight.
I try to help our designated sprinter move up in spite of struggling to hang on while wheelsucking most of rest of the time. We get to three to go and I see a teammate closer to the front and move up to join him. With two to go I am on his wheel and then when there is a surge on the backside, I let it go, but others close the gap by the turn. On the last ascent of the steep hill I pedal as fast as I can but am somewhat disappointed to find myself only keeping even with the ten to eleven riders around me. Do not have anything left in the legs after this and roll in for somewhere around tenth to twelfth.
On the plus side this is the hardest I've gone in a crit since I got sick in February so slowly getting back in the groove of racing.
