A race recap coming late in the week typically means that I don’t have anything I really care to talk about. This thought holds true this week. This weekend Wake Forest hosted the raceing but I opted to set out of the road race on Saturday as the two hour drive was a bit to far to drive two days in a row. Instead I decided I would head up Sunday for the collegiate crit in the morning and then hang around for the 4/5 crit in the afternoon. I had a really good week of training leading up to the race and knew that two crits on Sunday would be a hard cap to the week.
This would be my last collegiate race of the year and probably the last collegiate race of my career. Its getting crunch time in law school so the time for training is going to go from little to close to none and the same goes for racing. Time to focus on school in other words. Beyond that Marshall is graduating this year and with no one else interested in carrying on the club Campbell Cycling is likely to cease to exist next year. So the plan was to go and do really well in the collegiate crit and then just hang on as long as I could with tired legs in the open race.
As I pulled up to the start line I glanced around and noticed that several of the really strong riders weren’t present and in fact there wasn’t but 1 guy who I wasn’t sure I was as strong, or stronger than in the field. So I was looking forward to a good finish when we started and I sprinted up and was sitting about 5th wheel going into the first turn. As I was standing on the start line I glanced down and saw I was in the little ring and thought about fixing it then but instead made a mental note to fix it after the first turn. So as I rounded the first turn I was in my biggest gear in the back after the starting sprint, so knowing that I often drop the chain if I try to shift to the big ring in that gear I shifted down a couple in the back before shifting up in the front. Then it happened. I schlecked a chain (Reference to Andy Schleck dropping his chain in the TDF). My chain went over the big ring and down onto my crank arm.
I pulled out of the peloton and stopped to put it back on. I glanced up to see Marshall riding at the back and yelled for him to stop hopping he wouldn’t mind pulling me back to the field. I struggled to get it back on in the panic and the peloton had a pretty sizable gap on us by the time I got back on the bike. I jumped onto Marshalls wheel and he pulled us as ahrd as he could toward the peloton. After about half a mile I could tell Marshall was dying so I thanked him for the effort on my behalf and tried to bridge back to the field. I closed to with about 75 yard of the pack as we finished the first lap and then seemed to stay in the same spot for the next ten minutes. Im not saying they consciously didn’t want me to catch on but I do know that Kevin from Duke said NC State kept throwing attack after attack and after the race one of the NC State guys came up and said “what happened, I thought when I saw you pull out that’s that strong guy from Campbell.” Who knows.
Whatever the case after about a fifteen minute chase I settled onto a guys wheel who had got dropped and recovered for a minute. Then for the rest of the race I skipped from one dropped rider to the next. There was a group of about 5 of the strongest guys off the front and the rest of the field ended up stringing out trying to chase. In the end I launched a 32mph uphill sprint to take a glorious 9th. I honestly felt really strong the whole time I was chasing and then jumping from one rider to the next with ease in the back of the field. I really think I could have had a shot at the win but who knows. I felt bad though that I had asked Marshall to sacrifice himself for me and then I could finish the job. Another one of those bike racing things I guess...
I sat around watching bike racing for the next few hours waiting for the open race at 1pm. When I got on the bike to warm up I knew it was going to be a short race as my legs were really fatigued. By the evening the wind had really picked up on the back stretch and the front stretch was a half mile hill so there was no place to rest on the whole course. I cut my warm up short and line dup on the front row. The objective was to get some more experience riding in a large field of over 50 riders and hold on as long as possible. At the start I rode smart and stayed at the front settling into about 15th wheel. After about 10 minutes though when we would round a turn I didn’t have the sprint out of the turn and I would let a little gap go and then have to pull it back. Finally about 15 minutes in we hit the hill and my legs said that it and out the back I went.
I thought about pulling out but I knew I was also there for a good training ride so I ended up settling into a group of about 8 guys off the back with the goal of not getting lapped. We didn’t really work to well together though and then in the last turn before the finish the pack caught us. My legs were fried worse than they had been in a while but I guess that’s a good thing.
So no race this weekend. Then Ill be doing the Shamrock crit next Friday night downtown under the lights to end my early season.
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