I had hoped the highlight would be yesterday. Yesterday was my brother-in-law's (Gene) birthday. He joined Team Aggress two years ago so we could race together ... but as luck would have it, I got injured and this was our first race.
The venue was new, Verrado Criterium, out in the middle of NOWHERE west of Phoenix. The setting was nice, but I was not happy with the course as it was super narrow and technical, and very short, just 0.4 of a mile. I'm not sure how the course got approved by USAC at that distance, but I don't know a lot of things! That will be the extent of my complaining about the race. Here's what went down.
We showed up at the start 10 minutes early but the entire field was already lined up. I believe there were 42 people. The widest part of the race was at the start line, it was a single car lane wide, without shoulder and barriers on each side. In the 4/10ths of a mile there were 5 turns, including a 180 degree turn. I knew as soon as I lined up that my race was likely over.
I mean, if I were lined up front on this race, I'd fight like hell to be first man in turn one. Whoever could match my accelerations out of the turns would be who I had to race for the day. That's exactly what happened.
The first lap was "neutral," so I'll call it lap zero. The first racing lap had two crashes in front of me (caught them on my GoPro though). By the time I was on the "long" straight away, the front of the field was taking turn one. I was 15 seconds down on a course laps were around 1:05 each and making up time was tough.
In the end I was wrongfully pulled from the race and marked down as finished last. I yelled, literally, at the poor race director. I didn't cuss at him, but I explained in a very direct and brisk manner how he was wrong, why he was wrong and what I thought about it. I'll apologize to him next time I see him. I was right in my claims, wrong in my behavior. That's not how I want to be.
And not only did I get pulled, that's what Gene got for his birthday, too! DOH!!
Here's the video from the race. I sped up a few parts, but you can see my pathetically short race in its entirety. The race director was right in trying to keep everybody safe and it was total chaos on the course. He had too many things to keep track of. With a group that had more tightly grouped competitors it might be a safe course, but for the cat4/5 men's group, it was a horror show.
Still, I got a very intense 15 minute work out, doing the whole thing solo. I practiced cornering, a lot. I got faster on the course while doing less work, by myself. That's a big win!
I also tried a new warm up routine, based on what Team Sky does before their races. Being just 20 minutes long makes my pre-race ritual much less hectic. Here it is:
Standard Time Trial Warm-Up
- 5 min light
- 8 min progressive to Zone 5
- 2 min easy
- 2 min to include - 3 x 6s accelerations to activate
- 3 mins easy
Notes:
- Progressive means building to the power zone over the 8 minutes. Only in the last 1 min do you get to Z5
- 6 second accelerations are sprints & for a whole 6 seconds!
There was a team meeting Saturday, a party really. It was cool to hang out and talk racing. During that brief weekend I went from having zero disc wheels for time trials to having two loaners! I also scored a set of new shoes from a teammate (I'll have to make a donation to El Grupo, a youth cycling program in Tucson), but still, what a deal.
During the long training ride I raced Tim Scott and Rich Stevens up and down the hills of Santa Cruz County, AZ. We amassed just over 5,000 feet of climbing and I was happy to be able to hold my own. Tim is an awesome climber and for me, at just over 200 pounds still, to be able to mix it up on the uphills, was a good sign. (Tim and I are racing Tour of the Gila together this year. We always hurt each other a lot when riding together ... much pain in the future, I see!)
This past week was a grind. I've not been sleeping well and that's important when doing hard training. This coming week I have a couple of V02 Max workouts, a time trial on Saturday (first of the year) and I might race two criteriums on Sunday.
Anyhow, no crazy stories this week, but thanks for following along. Here are few more pictures of the ride today:
Anyhow, no crazy stories this week, but thanks for following along. Here are few more pictures of the ride today:
Hopefully I'll see you out there on Sunday
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to figure out if I should do two Sunday crits or a long training ride. I'm doing the TT on Saturday, even though the weather will be bad. Should be fun either way!
DeleteI've been doing the Sky warm up for about a year. I even did it before the Tour De Tucson...It's a great warm up! I had lapped the group but still got pulled with a few laps to go. Good luck at the TT I may not be there instead I'll do the crits. VOS has a Crit and I need to get better at these kind of races...Which I don't really enjoy yet!
ReplyDeleteJust watched the video...You had me crying when you went around the race official!! That's what I should have done.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm not ducking out. Ridiculous. :D
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