Tonight, we are just getting right to the meat on the bone and I am posting this in "Race Report Format".
The pace of the first lap started out brisk and I didn’t feel ready to race yet. I think my legs were slow to wake up because I did the Land Park Crit the day before. On the first few inclines I lost ground to the lead riders but I wasn’t fretting too much. Rod had excellent position in the top 3-5 riders and Rob wasn’t too far behind. Patrick was also in the area as well, occasionally shifting from the back to the front.
As we got to the second lap I started to feel ready to race and started to be more active in moving towards the front and staying close to my teammates. A couple of attacks went and I thought that they were all reeled back in until some guys started talking about how one guy is up ahead on his own. I wasn’t sure if they were serious or if that was a ruse. I thought everyone was caught and I conferred with Rod who was also up front. Rod agreed with my assessment. It turns out that we had confused stragglers from the two launches before us (there were a LOT of them in this race) with the guy that was out on an attack.
We were debating whether to chase or not when Rob makes the key decision to chase him down. At this point Body Concepts took over the pace of the peloton and started the chase. Unlike Snelling, other riders came up to continue to drive the pace. However, while Rob and I thought it was a good idea at the time, we realized that we made a tactical error. We started the chase right before the base of the KOM. As other riders came up to take over, we were over-extended as the climb started. Rod stuck it out and managed to be the first one up and I wasn’t far behind. However more riders came up to continue the drive and Rod started to fall back. I came up to close the gap and told Rod to grab my wheel as I went by.
At this point, the pace was furious. I was doing everything I could to hang on to the wheel in front of me. I was towards the back of the massive pace line that had formed so I was constantly in on/off mode trying to stay on in the back. I couldn’t take time to look to see if teammates were behind me or not until we were approaching the last KOM. At this point I was scanning the jerseys around me. Several Victory Velo guys were there, 2 Folsom Bike, 2 Rio Strada, 3 Pen Velo, and I thought there were 2 Golden Wheelman. (Looking at the results, there was really only one. Maybe there was another jersey that was similar.) With that many riders with teammates, I thought I was going to be in trouble. Going up the last KOM turned out to be pretty tame as everyone knew that the finish line was coming up shortly after the KOM and no one wanted to burn themselves out. After the climb, some riders shot out. There were at least two, maybe three gaps in front of me (hard to tell exactly because we were catching the tail end of the cat that launched before us plus I had to focus a lot on the road because between puddles and pot holes, that final stretch was a mine field). I was debating if I should stay in the group and conserve energy until the finish or if I should start bridging the gaps in case they don’t get closed. I decided I didn’t want to finish the race with anything left in the tank so I started bridging the gaps. It worked pretty well as I was able to separate out from the group and got an 8th place finish. I was in the running for top 5 but ran out of gas. John Metzger, from Folsom Bike, edged by me right before the finish line. Interestingly, even though there were plenty of teams with numbers, it didn’t appear that they were working together at the finish.
In thinking about this the next day, there is one thing I could have done a little bit better when I was bridging the gaps. The last gap was one guy from Taleo Racing. As I caught his wheel I saw the finish line coming up and went around him even though I was exhausted. I should have stayed back there a few more seconds to get a brief recharge before the final sprint. Even though I passed him, I ran out of gas and he passed me to finish 6th.
So there it is folks. To sum it up, I had two thoughts that I took away from this race: 1. I felt that it was better to be aggressive and put myself in a position to win than to be conservative and hope that I would be in a position to win. 2. Even if you aren't feeling good at the start of the race, hang in there. I felt like crap at the beginning of the race but after the first ten miles I felt stronger and stronger. I felt pumped after this race. Even though I did finish higher in another race, this is the first race where I felt like I was in a position to win and put it all out on the line to make it happen. It's a great feeling and reconfirms that I am doing the right thing by following my life's dream to race.
No comments:
Post a Comment