Back at it this week after taking last week off for my last week of final exams (at least for my undergraduate career). Ill be back in the hills of western NC to start training for my fall season before moving to Raleigh in July for law school.
This week I hit up the local Wednesday night crit series on my first day back home. The race was held at the North Wilkesboro Speedway where the ASU crit was held during collegiate season. Marshall and I both really enjoyed that race and had one of our best combined performances there so we were excited to get back out there. I was of course doing the cat 4/5 but this was actually my first public road race so I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. On top of that when I registered I was informed I was the first person from wilkes to actually show up to the series so I had the hometown pressure.
There were about 20 people in our race but it was a strong field. Every racer there was affiliated with a bike shop or on a sponsored team which means they weren’t just coming out for the first time. I don’t know how common this is for a road race but in most beginner mountain bike races only the top finishers are attached. As we stood on the line I thought about the plan we had discussed for us to mainly just try and stay in the pack and then with 2 or 3 to go I was going to try and take my shot off the front and if that didn’t work id do my best to lead Marshall out for a sprint at the end.
As we started Marshall and I sat comfortably in the top 5 with a relatively low pace compared to a collegiate D race. In most D crits the pace is redlined from the gun to the finish but also the duration of D crits are 20 minutes compared to a 4/5 crit which is 30 minutes. Ill be honest even though I thought maybe they are just starting easy, the pace lulled me into a sense of comfort. We were holding the front and at one point about 5 minutes in a guy got off the front solo and I put in a pretty big turn on the front to bring him back in. I knew marshall wanted to have a go at one of the primes so I didn’t want anyone off the front this early. Finally we tried to move back into the middle of the pack to sit in but about this time the peloton decided to put in a series of attacks. The peloton really started to string out and a gap was forming between the front 7 or 8 riders and the rest of the field. So we decided we needed to move across the gap and had to put in a pretty big effort to get across. Soon however the field settled back down and all came back together. It seemed like it was like this most of the race with some big acceleration that would spread out the field and then a slowing that would allow everyone to catch back up. As hard as I tried however I never could seem to just settle in. I was either on the front squeezed to the outside into the wind, moving up, or trying to close gaps and accelerations. A little after halfway the bell rang for the first prime. I knew this was the one Marshall was waiting for but he got a little excited and went right off the start line. I hollered to soon but he went hard and got a pretty good gap on the field through turn one and two. After turn two however another rider went out and before turn three he had caught him and passed him out of turn four. Unfortunately as the group crossed the line the attacked again and as we passed marshall it was like he was sitting still and he couldn’t get back on. By minute 20 Marshall was out of the race and I was alone for the last 10 minutes. For the last ten minutes the peloton got a little more “angry” as they say and around 22 minutes in I fell off the back a little. I hung just 10 yards off the back for the next lap and finally I literally put my head down and gave a huge effort to close the gap and did by the end of the next lap. Once again though even as I caught the group it seemed I couldn’t get in the middle of the group to really recover. All the teams were on the front at this point and were holding each others wheels not wanting to let me into the draft. With two to go the field pushed the go button again and I couldn’t hold on. I had burned all my matches and although I dangled about 20 yards off for the whole lap with one to go the pace went even higher and all I could do was put my head down and pass two other dropped riders before the line.
It was certainly not the result I was looking for but I did a lot of learning once again. This race was a lot more calm and strategic rather than an all out suffer fest the entire race like a D race. Honestly it was the worst race iv ever had strategically. I was in the wind 90% of the race also it was very poor strategy for marshall to go so hard so early and blow himself out of the race. Next time we know what we are up against and we definitely need to work harder to stay in the middle and do much less work through the entire race. Also right after I caught the group with about 5 minutes left my stomach really started cramping like I was out of fuel. I guess those extra 10 minutes really make a difference. Overall though it was a very fun race that was very well done and my legs felt great considering the scaled down training You learn something every time out.
This was my last planned race of the spring season and so im going to take a couple weeks off the bike to transition before I start building again toward the fall season. Ill guess next week Ill give the ACCC road season summary I promised last week.
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