It was March 27th, two weeks after completing the Argus 70 mile race in Cape Town. The temps were pretty nice for spring with a moderate breeze and tems in the late 40s, early 50s. As usual I was late getting my entry in so I was on the dreaded Cat5 waitlist. Cat5 seems to be the only category that is constantly oversubscribed. Mainly due to the reduced field size required for safety reasons by USA Cycling and due to the sheer amount of beginner newbie flesh like me trying to go racing.
I was definitely not nervous or concerned about being dropped. I'd been doing the Chris Carmichael TCC program for about 2.5 months now and was feeling pretty decent. My weight was manageable and the Argus had really tested my legs a couple of weeks ago. The only thing was I didn't have my race bike so here I was racing the Ritchey. My race bike was still in South Africa and only due back in the US in August (argggh!). But I wasn't really worried since I really didn't think that it would come down to bikes. I thought everyone was probably still a little green from winter and it wouldn't be that tough. I was right...kind of.
After getting myself in and my numbers pinned I raced back to the car to put my bike on the trainer to warm up. I remember reading in the Carmichael book how he believed that warmups were critical to getting the lactate buffer primed to cope with the surges that were bound to come. Fortunately there was very little braking and since the track was meant for cars and not bicycles this meant that the corners, while tight for cars (actually we call Blackhawk, Brakehawk because it is so rough on brakes) it is really wide and open for bikes. Unfortuantely in between getting myself in, paying, pinning numbers and wrestling the door of the porta-potty I only had about 5 mins for a warm up. Then it was over to the start finish line for a nice welcome lecture by race officials. Fortunately I got a good position near the front, noticed a couple of fellow Spidermonkeys in the group and settled in. I'm feeling really good about my temperament before races. I'm nicely calm and ready to ride.
The start was fine. Nothing serious. We generally stayed in a group and did nice slow (to me) laps of Blackhawk. I can't remember what the lap times were but in the Carrera mine was 1:20 on the nose. Some folks tried to attack a couple of times and I bridged up once thinking they could get away but every time it seemed that the group caught them and that there was no way for a break to stick. So I hung out in the front half of the pack.
Now I remembered that one of the rules of crit racing was that you needed to be near the front most of the time (to avoid crashes and to cover or get in breaks) and certainly at the end you want to be in the top 5 or so riders. And I believe I did this very well but I did something else that was to my detriment, something that I never thought of until after the race: I waited for everyone else to sprint before doing so myself! This is the first mistake I made this year and you will see why that's important when I describe some of my later races and how I managed to place higher by going on my own terms.
A funny thing happens to you when you're in your first bike race. You look around at the start and you see all these other healthy and fit guys, hiding behind their steel-eyed Oakleys, all bursting and bustling in their skin tight spandax, sponsors flashing at you from brand new race jerseys, freshly shaved quads rippling out from beneath their bib-shorts and squeaky clean carbon frames and flashy wheels. You suddenly think you don't belong. You feel like you're 'applying' to be a part of the club and the only way you'll get accepted is if you hang on, if you don't humiliate yourself in front of the group. You feel like everyone else has been there forever, they know the ropes, they have a plan, they've done this before. Well, some have, but you need to realize that everyone feels like that. And furthermore, when you are hurting chances are that the guy next to you is hurting just as badly. So when I hit the last corner and was in about the top ten I felt like I didn't have a license to sprint. I felt that the big boys, the experienced riders were the only ones with the right to initiate the sprint. Who was I to be telling this pack of elite cyclists when to go? Big mistake!
You go when you go!
This is the second rule (behind the one that says: be in the top 5 in the final lap). If I had sprinted when I wanted to, on my terms, I might not have held onto my power for the entire length of time but I would have put myself several bike lengths in front of the guys who I was now trying to catch. So the sprint went like this: Nice position Tristan, final turn, nice and easy, watch their wheels....I think they're getting ready to sprint, yes they're getting ready, they're definitely going to sprint, any second now....THEY'RE SPRINTING!! GO GO GO! But it was too late already. They SPRUNT....ok, that's not a real word it's my word but it reminds me of SPRUNG as in this tire's sprung a leak...it sure felt like the air had been sucked out of me. So I didn't really sprint. I put down a meager amount of watts and splurged for the line. I got 17th out of 50. All in all a good attempt on my first effort but, yeah, I should have placed higher and backed myself. Which brings me to another point: You never know until you try. So why not try?
I didn't get dropped!
Critical Race Data:
Race length: 35 minutes
Average power while pedaling: 224W
Normalized power: 243W
Max: 865W
No comments:
Post a Comment