Pre-beatdown warmup
This season is definitely going to be an immersion classroom in “The education of a racer” for me. I’m learning a lot even if I can’t apply it all yet. From these three races my pain points have all been the same – hills. More specifically my unwillingness to dig really deep early in these races to make sure that I maintain contact with the group on the first hills. Some of that is fitness, sure, but I also know that a lot of it is inexperience.
In today’s road race, a couple of things were working against me. First, it was pouring rain from the time we left the neutralized zone at Lake Lurleen State Park. The first hill came right after crossing the lap line and the pace was already very high. Just like in the Hell of the South and the Crit, I had trouble maintaining position in the group on the hill – especially when the entire front of the pack stood up at once and slowed dramatically. I had to brake, which really pissed me off, then surge to try and regain contact with the group as they sat back down at the top. Positioning myself nearer the front from the start would have prevented this.
By now the rain had stopped, but our tires were still kicking up roostertails. I worked myself back onto the group for the rest of that lap, but on longer hill on the back section of the course I fell off pace again and lost some ground. There was a fast downhill just after this with a couple of turns, so by the time I crested the hill I couldn’t see the main group. Once again in solo mode, I ramped it up a bit and soon found Joe (my Steel City Cycles wheelman from the crit) and we worked together with a couple more guys to see if we could catch back on. I spent a lot of time on the rolling sections and the flat sections on the front and pulling hard, then sitting in for a few seconds before pulling back around and increasing the pace again. Few of the other guys seemed inclined to bridge the gap up to the main group, so I burned a lot of matches on lap 2. I feel like I can take about 65% credit for us bridging back up to the group before the last climb. Even earning a scolding from one of the race officials for drafting off of the wheel truck (which we were not doing). We reconnected briefly, and I saw Joe move into the pack a few places. I was in the process of moving up when we hit the hill and I once again moved back a bit. One of the Velocity Pro Cycles riders (one of the chief race sponsors) and I lost connection with the main group around the downhill bends and didn’t see them again on lap 3.
The Velocity Pro cycles rider had helped some on the last bridging attempt rode with me, alternating pulls through the first half of lap 3. We talked about sticking together and seeing who we could take on the last few miles. By the time we hit the last hill, he was starting to cramp up and told me to go. I knew the hill had given me trouble the last two laps, but figured “what the hell” and gassed it. By the time I topped the hill I realized that I should have been riding the hills like this way earlier in the race and not burning so many matches riding solo when there were probably riders just out of sight behind me that would have been willing to work together. After the race, another racer said something that hit home “If you are off the back of a group, sometimes it’s better to swallow a little pride and let yourself be caught than try too hard to catch back on”. It’s funny, but when I am in that situation burying myself in the pain cave is a heck of a lot easier than sitting up and waiting to be caught.
Brian and I talked on the way back to Nashville about tactics and positioning. He thought that I would have been fine staying with the group if I had just made it through the first lap with them. The group was taking turns gingerly due to the wet roads, and was riding entire sections at nearly a recovery pace! I was behind them by myself, or in a small group, killing myself to make up time lost on the hills. That hard effort that I put in on the last hill of the last lap was completely mis-timed. That effort belonged on the first lap of the first hill. Had I done that I probably would have been able to sit in and help Brian out. He rode a smart and strong race, staying close to the front the whole time, never getting himself in trouble, and finishing 5th.
Education of a racer homework: Stay with the group in the early part of the race even at a high cost. They will sit up and recover at some point. Class Dismissed.
