Time Trial:
My parents also came over for the weekend. They both enjoy the area and my dad likes wine and as you know Walla Walla is known for its wines. Lindsay missed the trip waiting for her sister to give birth to baby Ronin Shack who arrived Tues night 4/19. I have ridden the TT bike 5 times so far this year and I haven’t ridden it in anger or on the road and only twice with the new aero bars I put on it. All signs leading up to my disastrous TT. What is the saying, “practice makes perfect.” This year has been a year for me to forget all the little things that really matter. Then I thought only warming up for 30 minutes was also ok. This is another case in point of forgetting the little things. The TT is only 9.3 miles so my warm up should have been closer to 1 hour if not a little more. You are full gas from the start to the finish of the Time Trial. I lined up at the gate and felt good.
I took off and sprinted until I got up to my desired speed of about 24 mph and then I settled into my position. I felt good for the first ¼ mile but then I wasn’t able to get my heart rate below 180 bpm. I was practically maxed out. This was going to be a hard 9 miles. I got to the climb which is 3 miles into the TT and stood up to sprint only to whack my knees on my bars. So I sat back down and continued to climb at a snail pace. The lactic acid in my legs was building up and it made it hard to get any power into the pedals. Then I got a case of I can’t breath, my skin suit is too tight (which it isn’t). I unzipped it and felt better and when I got to the top I couldn’t get it to zip back up. Err. I messed with it for a bit and finally got it to zip up before heading down the hill. Then I had to deal with the head wind and some cross winds. My TT was slower than it was the first year I showed up and raced on my road bike with no aero equipment.
60th place out of 80 racers. I was devastated mentally.
Criterium:
As I said I was pretty down after the TT. I couldn’t figure it out. None of the things I mentioned above entered my mind. Lindsay texted me and told me to put my big boy panties on and focus on the crit. I decided I needed to do get angry and take it out in the crit. This course really suites my style as it has 8 corners and all are fairly fast and flat. The pavement is a bit sketchy with several areas with potholes and it’s pretty bumpy. The weather was ok with no rain but the wind was pretty bad on the back side of the course with a heavy head wind. We lined up all 78 of us. I was in the 2nd row and the pop gun sounded we were off. The first few laps were pretty uneventful. As soon as we got to the back side of the course everyone fanned out and nobody wanted to do any work with the head wind. I stayed near the front the majority of the race. I felt really good and couldn’t believe how I felt considering how I was 5 hours ago in the TT. I came up with a new name for some crazies that were in the pack. They are called wave riders. They move from one side of the peloton to the other to catch the fastest line/wave with out even looking. Almost taking out multiple racers in there wake. We had several of those in our race. With 3 laps to go I made sure I was in the front 10. We came around for lap 2 and it was a prime lap worth some bonus seconds for the overall GC. I sat 2nd wheel and decided I wasn’t going to contest it and save my sprint for the finish. As we came around for our last lap I got pushed back a little and had to make some moves on the outside of the last couple corners in order to move up. Finding the best wheel to follow in criteriums for the final sprint is difficult. Especially racing with a bunch of guys you aren’t familiar with. Several guys went with 500 meters to go and I stayed seated and just turned it up a bit. I was on the outside of the course when I came around the wheel I had been following. I realized then I should have gone sooner. I closed the gap considerably to the front 3 but I was still gaining speed when we got to the line. Then I see a photographer standing 15 ft past the finish line directly in front of me. I yelled at him to move and had to duck and lean on the guy to my right so I wouldn’t hit him. That was close. I came in 5th. All is right in the world now. My TT was a bust and I should stick with criterium racing.
Road Race:
We started at 8 am Sunday morning. It was cold but the sun was out so I was hopeful that it would warm up. Once again we lined up with I believe about 75 of us racing. This was a new course for us and the course Gabe and I drove on Friday. We were doing 2 laps with a total 64 miles with 4,000 ft of climbing. You were either climbing or going down hill. The course didn’t provide much for flat areas.
Long story short, I got dropped on the 3rd climb right after the tight downhill left hand turn. This is where the majority of the pack got separated. The climber group consisted of guys who weigh 135 lbs or so and love climbing. The 2nd group included a good mix of the same. Then I see Jason on our team who flatted in the first mile come speeding past me. What? This guy is probably 6ft tall and around 185-195 lbs. I tried to jump on his wheel only to be dropped off of his wheel. Oh well, I wished him well in my head and tried going up the climbs at my own pace. We formed a group of 20 or so. Then as we continued to climb and descend the group dwindled down to 6 of us. I came around the feed and water zone area to see my dad standing there with my bottle. I told him on the next lap I would be ready for it. I got dropped on the next climb and was riding all by myself into the wind. It was the most un-enjoyable thing I have ever done on the bike. I rode by myself for the next 10 miles and couldn't wait to see my dad at the feed zone with my new bottle of water.
He mentioned I was about 10 minutes behind the leaders. I didn't really care and just wanted to be done with this. I could hear my mom telling me to get up there. Thanks mom. It was really cold and the wind was gusting around 15 to 20 mph. With about 10 miles to go I turned around on one of the climbs to see a group of guys coming up. I sat up and waiting for them and saw some of the guys that were originally in our group. I happily jumped in out of the wind. We all rode together until the finish and I believe I came in 4th or 5th in the bunch sprint.
This was the hardest race I have ever done. I came in 41st out of 52 finishers. We had almost 30 guys who didn’t finish the race. It was really nice to have the folks there with me and helping out during the weekend. Everyone on the team mentioned how nice it was that they were there so that was cool. The funny thing is I moved all the way up to 45th in GC standings. That is one place higher than last year. Ha-ha.
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