Well Iv been off the grid for the past month or so after starting my internship at the NC Court of Appeals. Who would have though sitting in front of a computer in a silent library for eight hours a day would be so exhausting and time consuming. Needless to say its taken some time to figure out how to fit in rides of the evening when all I want to do is come home and relax and I certainly haven’t felt like writing any more after toiling over judicial opinions all day. Today however, I have come home to no power after a storm rolled through so all I can do is sit here. Guess there’s no better time than now to share the story from my past couple races (cross my fingers the power comes on eventually so I can actually post this).
Just before I began my clerkship I did the all that jazz crit in Cheraw, South Carolina. I actually typed up a blog recounting in detail this race, however it was lost (either I didn’t save it or I cant remember what I saved it under) so Ill tell the tale again just in much less detail. This was my first road race back after taking time off for exams and then tryin to train for a month or so. It was also my first Cat 5 only crit. The thing I remember most about this particular day was the heat. It was about 105 degrees at 2 oclock when the race started and with the heat bouncing off the asphalt the heat index had to be over 110. The field was fairly small but a few guys jumped on the front at the start and kept the pace high. I felt really comfortable despite the heat to start, just sitting in the group. I was able to stay with the surges put in when one particular guy always came to the front. As we neared the end with three to go I found myself in the front 5 or so. I still felt strong, so I decided to stay there and go for the sprint. I had been debating before hand whether to attack with about a lap to go or whether to just sit in for the field sprint, but at this point I decided I was in perfect position for the sprint. As we came to two to go I was sitting third right behind two teammates as the field stretched. I was confident. I figured the one teammate was there to take the second to the line for the sprint and I was going to set on the second teammates wheel. I stayed focused but the heat was starting to set in, I had chills and a bit of a headache. Nevertheless I maintained position and when we rounded turn four to get one lap to go both the teammates sat up. Why I don’t know. Suddenly I found myself on the front. I certainly wasn’t going to pull to the finish so I sat up as well. The field spread across the road as we got the bell. I didn’t know what was happening as everyone stalled. Just then the two guys on either side of me went. I tried to jump in line but everyone was stuck to their wheels. In a matter of seconds I went from first to the tail of the field. The pace was at the top end so there was no chance of me goin on my own now and I was to far back to sprint. So as I came to the line I sat up behind the sprint and coasted across the line for a disappointing end to a race with so much promise. As soon as I crossed the line the heat hit me like a wall and I almost went into the hay bales as I got dizzy.
Looking back when the field stalled with one to go I wish I would have attacked with everything I had just to see what would happen, but I was already in sprint mode so it didn’t cross my mind at the time. Overall I was pretty happy with my ride as it didn’t feel that hard for a crit even though we averaged a bit over 24mph for the race.
After that crit as I said I started my clerkship and my training hours fell off even more than their already minimal state. I had started doing the time crunched cyclist plan at the first of June which consist of two high intensity interval sessions and two more endurance threshold kindof rides a week. This was working nicely as I would do my intervals at the first of the week then Thursday I would do my group road ride with Cycling Spoken here followed on Friday by a 2-3 hour mtb ride. Once the job started though I found little motivation to do my intervals at night and could only fit in one long evening ride a week without my wife claiming I had abandoned her. Thus, going into my next race the NC road race champs my training had been spotty at best.
The NCRR this year was in Southern Pines and concisted of a ten mile loop with rolling hills, nothing to steep but enough to make things difficult. The real problem was once again the heat coupled with the fact they were running the Cat 5 and Cat 4 guys together. I tired to pull some strings with Marshall officiating and Judy chief reffing but it was no use we were stuck with the Cat 4’s. As we rolled at we had to be close to the field limit of 75 guys and I had lined up at the tail end because for some reason everyone decided to go line up half an hour before the race started. At the gun I went hard to try to move up a few spots and made it up to about ¾ ways in the field. The pace was high from the start and as we hit one of the slight downhills I glanced down to see we were doing almost 40mph. Just then some one tapped their brakes causing a chain reaction which ended with tries locked up smoking and near disaster. I recovered though and pushed on up the first few hills maintaining position, but I could tell with my heart rate already pushing 190 I couldn’t hold this pace the whole race. Sitting in the middle of such a large field the draft was great but the heat was stifling making it hard even breath. As we finished the first lap I glanced back to see that most of the guys behind me had been dropped on the first lap and I feared it wouldn’t be long for me either. I pushed hard to stay in contact up the first “major” hill, but the real problem was becoming the turns. I was at the tail end still and when we would make the turns the tail end would almost come to a stop before making the turns and then we would have to stomp on it to catch back up to the front. Finally on one of these turns I just didn’t have the pop and the accordion snapped leaving me and several other off the back. I tried to chase back on but my heart rate was maxed out, so I sat up and got a few big gulps of water. Marshall pulled up to me in a follow car about this time and said something but honestly I was so spent I couldn’t make it out. After getting my heart rate back under control I sat off again and realized I was gaining on the pack. So I put in a really hard effort and manged the chase back onto the back of the field somehow about ¾ through the second lap. I was pretty impressed with my self for this move and I tried to set in and revocer, however no sooner than I had settled back into the field we hit another 120 degree turn which I had to almost stop to get around at the back and that was that, nothing left to chase back on. Soon another small group came up along side me and I jumped on their train for a ride back to the start finish where I called it a day. I just couldn’t see pedaling around with one other guy off the back for twenty more miles in that heat. When I got back to base camp the heat really set in and I promptly puked all over my gear bag.
We had averaged almost 24mph on the rolling course the first lap and then, looking at another racers strava, they did almost 24.5 the lap I was dropped but then only 23.5 and 22 on the last two. I did manage to set my all time 5 and 10 minute power outputs during the race though which is something. Looking at the Cat 5 results after the race I saw that almost half the field had dnf’d and I know at least another quarter were dropped if not more. It just didn’t make since to run the cat 5 race like that with the big cat 4 engines on the front dropping everyone. Give us a five minute gap between fields, we wont catch them. Anyway I felt pretty good about hanging on as long as I did but I guess I got a taste of what next year is going to be like again.
So the next race is the NC crit championships this Saturday. Training has remained spotty, but even if I havnt got any stronger maybe iv at least maintained. Well see how it goes.
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