Land Park Crit Strikes Back

A river runs through it... our race that is. Water poured from the skies and ran as rivers in the gutters.

There is no pretty way to say it, our weather has been sucking. Training has been a tortuous choice of indoor rim-trainer hell or risking flooding, hail, and wind gusts that have even gone so extreme as to spawn mini tornadoes. We had looked forward to this Land Park Criterium being another fun family outing and instead found ourselves agonizing the night before if the family should even go. The morning started out with rain but as we started packing up it all seemed to lull and we decided to pack everyone up and hit the road.

Todd toughing it out.

We arrived that morning at about 6:40 and we soon located my only fellow team member joining me for the race. Todd was alone and with an injured leg he had been unable to train the week leading up to the race. The crit would be his return to the bike. I have to say that I admire his grit and determination. Many folks bailed on the crit for the weather forecast alone but here he was braving all kinds of nastiness with an uncooperative knee and only one other teammate to race with.

Returning to Land Park was full of memories of my first ever road race just a few months back. Back then, I hadn’t known what to expect. The course was cold and wet with some nasty turns and my wife described my look as a deer caught in headlights. I didn’t feel like I could handle the turns well.  Every one of them felt too fast.  Coming out of the turns everyone else was in a full sprint and I wasn’t able to keep up.  I wasn’t sure where I should be and when I should be there.  I would start working my way up the pack only to pull back in too soon.  I also had no idea where the lap counter was and I didn’t reset my computer so I didn’t know how much time had elapsed.  I didn’t know when the race was going to end until it was over. Essentially, I was clueless.

I felt more confident this time out but my focus quickly dissolved as within 15 minutes of our arrival the winds kicked up with a vengeance. My wife and oldest daughter had practiced setting up our canopy the night before but even that could not help us when the wind kept ripping the walls out of our hands. We had hoped to have had a windbreak set-up for me to warm up in but we had to abandon walls and rim trainer as the weather began to batter us. We left our 18 year old in charge of the two younger kids in the warmth of our vehicle while we fought to get the shelter up. We were finally successful with the help of Todd and a strong little sapling that we anchored to but time was running out. I ended up having to leave my wife alone to set up camp while Todd and I warmed up on the course.

As we gathered at the starting line the wind battered at us, driving the needles of rain into our faces. My wife got the kids back from the car and under the shelter, arriving just in time to see the start of the race. At the start the pack took off at a pretty good pace but nothing I couldn’t handle. I was expecting things to slow down a bit in the second lap when I noticed two Rio Strada riders working their way to the front of the group.  I wasn’t sure if they had a plan for an attack or not so I moved my way to the front of the pack so that I could keep an eye on them.  Just as I got within range a San Jose Bicycle Club rider takes off on a sprint on the left side of the course.  At first no one flinches but then a train of riders shoots off the left side as well.  At this point, the race is on.  The pace did the opposite of what I thought it would do and it picked up significantly. 

I was nervous about the turns before the race but being able to ride several practice laps got me used to them. Between my experience gained from the last time I raced here and the warm-up laps I felt able take the turns without being concerned about whether or not I was going too fast.  If anything, I wanted to go faster but couldn’t due to traffic.  Considering that the course was even wetter today with more slippery grime on the road, I take that as a major improvement, if nothing else at least in my confidence level.

I will admit that I was initially having trouble with sprinting out of the turns.  Before the race I had decided that at those times I needed to jump out of the saddle to make sure I stayed on the wheel in front of me.  During the race I struggled for a while when I realized I didn’t follow my own pre-race instructions.  Next time around I hopped out of the saddle and had no problems keeping up with the group.  From then on out I was active in getting out of the saddle coming around the turns and it showed a marked improvement in my performance.

This time around I also knew exactly where I wanted to be; towards the back of the main pack unless there was a break forming.  With the wind gusting I didn’t want anything to do with the front of the pack.  I thought that I would stand a much better chance if I hid at the back of the pack for most of the race.  There is a risk that the person in front of you can fall off the peloton and you could have a gap, but I was on high-guard for this and instantly went around anyone that started to lag.  With two laps to go, I started to make my move and work my way up the peloton.   With one lap to go I found myself sliding back in the pack a little, but no big deal.  I got right back in front and was in perfect position coming around the final turn. That was until what I like to call “The Curse of the Squirrels” struck.

(Excerpt from the GroveTribe Sporting Dictionary)
Curse of the Squirrels – n. The misfortune that befalls Category 5 riders when riding with other inexperienced, nervous, jittery, panicky, unable-to-hold-the-line racers who in fact resemble the behavior of neurotic frightened squirrels. The only known counter to the curse is to get in Cat 4 as soon as possible. (end)

I was on the outside of the final turn with a rider next to me on the inside.  Someone further inside took a REALLY bad line on the turn and shot out wide towards the rider next to me.  The rider next to me went wide towards me.  Initially I wasn’t too concerned because the road was plenty wide.  However, the rider next to me continued to drift wide while looking (and I believe saying something) to the rider that almost ran into him.  He continued to go wide until I was about to be knocked off into the gutter.  At that point he finally got his head back into the race and straightened out his course but not before my bike and I had to struggle to escape our crash-course with the gutter.

I am not a happy camper.

I started to go for the sprint.  The only problem is that I was in my “sprint gear” just before that near-collision took place.  Dodging “squirrels” had killed my momentum and I found myself in too hard of a gear to sprint from.  I still gave it a go but as the riders in front of me pulled away and I started to get passed by a few others and I could see that top 5 spot that I had felt was within my grasp just slip away. At that point frustration got the better of me and instead of trying for a top ten I could only see that my race for top spot was over and I gave up. I was livid and as I crossed the finish line I took my glasses off and was about to throw them down to the pavement when common-sense took over – after all, cycling glasses aren’t cheap!- and I decided to save that frustrated energy  for tomorrow’s Sacramento Golden Wheelman sponsored race, the Bariani Road race.

Other brave and supportive families come out to cheer for their racers.

My wife met me at the finish line after my cool down lap (which had a double meaning this time around) and she looked soaked to the bone. She was splattered with mud, her pants drenched from the knees down and her shoes unrecognizable balls of mud. Her hat had blown off and her hair was plastered to her wind-reddened face. When we got to our shelter I saw that our kids were gone, after a few minutes in the miserable weather she had sent them all back to the warmth of the car, and in their place we had a small adopted tribe of racers’ families under our canopy. My wife had offered our shelter and our seats to the moms and their rain-drenched children at least until we had to leave. She began to break down camp while I got changed and Todd and I checked the race results. My emotions got the better of me and I placed 17^th while Todd did a respectable 21^st out of a field of 30 even with his injury.

Jax and Morgan cheering for me.

When we got home we didn’t even bother to unpack the car we just headed straight for the showers. The kids weren’t too bad from the experience, I was told that my toddler was cheering me on with his cute little wolf-howl he does now, but my wife took it hard and had to rest the remainder of the day. Running around, unprotected taking pictures in the nightmare weather is not the best thing for someone dealing with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome yet there she was for me; setting up camp, taking pictures, shouting encouragement to Todd and I knowing that she would pay the price after wards. As we were leaving Todd was helping us pack up and we talked a bit. He complimented my family for being “hard-core” supporters which made me thankful for having such a dedicated wife.

Here we now sit at 9:30 at night, blogging and prepping for tomorrow’s race. I pray that the weather is better and the notorious winds of Zamora are a lot less punishing than what we endured today. My legs are tired and I can only hope that I am of some use to my team tomorrow. The wife and kids?  Their assignment for tomorrow is to stay home, cuddle into some warm blankets on the couch and watch Bollywood movies.