Well, this was it. My first ever bike race. I'm not counting the time trial I did last year, since a time trial is kind of a different thing. Before I started, I told my wife I had two goals: 1) Don't crash, and 2) don't come in last. I'm happy to say I succeeded on both counts.
As I've mentioned before, since this is my first year racing, I'm in Category 5, which is essentially all the new racers. I'll be in this category until I complete 10 mass-start races, at which point I can request to be moved to Category 4. A mass-start race is one where an entire group starts at once. In other words, a road race or a criterium. Time trials don't count, since the whole point of Category 5 is to get you comfortable with riding in a group race. In a time trial, you're essentially on the road by yourself, so you're not really learning anything about racing.
The Senior Men Cat5 race started at 12:49pm on Saturday. (Note: I know I'm 40 and don't like to consider myself a "senior", but for the purposes of bike racing, a "senior" is anyone who isn't a "junior". And I'm definitely not a junior). I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to get ready, so I hopped in the car around 10am, and got to the race a little before 11am. After finding a place to park, I walked over to the start line to pick up my number and my timing chip. And surprise! I got an end-of-race beer-ticket, too! Sweet! Then back to the car to start getting dressed.
Weather for the race was supposed to be chilly and slightly breezy. About 40°F and 7-8 mph winds, with a slight chance of snow.
I was a little unsure about when I should be doing what, but I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually. I decided it was cold enough to wear my new team jacket, and started to work on pinning on my numbers. But then I thought I would work on warming up and getting the bike ready, and maybe have my wife pin the numbers on when she showed up a little later.
So, I just finished getting dressed. Team bib shorts, jersey, jacket and knee warmers, as well as my socks and shoes. Ready to go. I love the new team kit, and I can't wait to lose about 10 more pounds so it actually fits. It's supposed to be somewhat snug, but I'm kind of squished in it right now. Got out the helmet, long-fingered gloves, water bottles and bike computer. One bottle of water, just for pre-race hydration, and one bottle of
Skratch for during the race.
I also started getting a few other things squared away, like my little car-key/credit card pouch I carry on all my bike rides. It's just a little card-sized pouch with a key ring. On all my rides, I throw my credit card and drivers license in the pouch, and maybe a little cash depending on where I'm riding. This keeps me from having to carry my full key chain and wallet in my jersey pockets while I'm riding. I also threw my phone in my pocket in case my team was trying to call or my wife needed to find me when she showed up. I would plan to leave it in the car during the race, though.
After that, I decided to try to find my team, who was riding around a bit to warm up. I headed down the road a bit, eventually meeting up with them on the way back from their warm-up ride. I didn't get much of a warm-up, unfortunately, and then decided to find a friend of mine from work, who just joined up with a different team. I eventually found him at his car and we chatted for a few minutes before I needed to get back and start warming up on my trainer.
Right about then, my wife and kids showed up, and suddenly things started getting a little hectic. I rode back to the car and they walked over. I got the trainer out of my trunk, and got the bike set up, then asked my wife to help me pin my numbers on my jacket. She started working on that while I started spinning on the trainer. The kids helped a little bit, too. I brought an extra set of wheels with me, and they helped me get them ready to throw in the support truck. (If you get a flat, they just give you a replacement wheel instead of trying to patch it or changing a tube). Then I realized she was pinning the numbers too low, and covering up my pockets. So, she had to start over.
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| Warming up at the car. Showing off the new team kit. |
Once she finished the numbers, I realized I only had a few minutes left before my race was going to start. I jumped off the bike, packed up the trainer, grabbed my wheels and started riding over to the start line. That's when I realized that the kids left the cowbells in the car, which was now locked. So, no cowbells for this race, unfortunately. So, I rode over to the start, found the wheel van and turned those over. Then I went and found a spot in line near the rest of my team. At this point, they were sending different categories off every 3 minutes, and there were two groups ahead of me, so I had about 6 minutes to spare. After one group went, we shuffled forward a bit and waited for the next group. Some chatting amongst the team as we got ready for what was, for most of us, our first race.
At that point, I realized that I had some crap with me that I didn't plan on carrying. The race was pretty short, so I was only going to bring one water bottle, but looked down and saw that I was still carrying two bottles. Then I realized that my phone was still in my jacket pocket, which I also wasn't planning on. Both of these things were just extra weight. I've got enough extra weight on my gut, I didn't need to be carrying more than necessary. But my wife and kids were about 100 yards down the road, so I couldn't hand them off, and we were moving up to the start line.
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| Gathered at the start line. |
At the line, the referee reminded us of some rules. Not much, other than "don't cross the center line" since the other side of the road was open to traffic. He told us we had a rolling start, and the race would actually start once we made the right turn shortly after we started moving. And then, WE'RE OFF!
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| I'm in this group somewhere. The guy towards the left side in the black and fluorescent green is Jonathan from my team, who went on to win. |
I start wonderfully. With my last minute rushing around, and frantically trying to figure out what to do with my water bottle and phone, I'm a little distracted. As soon as I start moving, I bump wheels with my own teammate in front of me, with my spoke getting slightly caught on his skewer. We both wobble a bit, I swear a few times, and apologize profusely, and then we're off and running. We start slowly, then make the right turn and the pace kicks up. We're a group of fifty-five Cat5 racers, most of us in our first race ever, so it's a little crazy. Fortunately, our team had practiced together quite a bit, and we were also instructed that Cat5's are a little crazy, so I tried to remain aware of what was going on around me. There was some frantic speeding and braking ahead of me, and almost a few collisions. Lots of swearing and yelling amongst the crowd. I managed to get myself out of the way of that group and forged ahead. I'm not sure if that was the cause or not, but afterwards I heard there was a crash right at the beginning of the race. I assume it happened right about then, and somewhere behind me. I don't think anyone from our team got caught up in the mayhem.
After the sketchy start, things settled down. As expected, no one worked together and it was kind of a free-for-all. I had ridden the route a few times before, and had a pretty good idea of what I could do, and the group was going a little slow for my taste. So I slowly made my way around a bunch of people and got into a good groove. I passed one or two teammates on the way. I really wasn't sure if I should stick with them so we could work together, or just push on and do the best I could do. I gave some words of encouragement, and pushed on ahead.
About a third of the way into the race, the grade kicks up. Gradually at first, and then it pushed up a decent slope to Carter Lake. I was feeling pretty good, and passed quite a few more people on the climb. A couple people passed me on the climb, up out of their saddle, but they eventually tired themselves out and I caught right back up with them as I kept a pretty steady pace. Once we were up onto the dam road, it flattened out and the pace picked up again. At this point, I was basically hanging around one or two other guys, but we weren't really working together. I need to make sure to encourage that a little more next time.
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| This isn't my photo, or a photo of me. This is from earlier in the day from an awesome photographer named Dejan Smaic of Sportifimages.com. He shoots most of the local races out here, and his work is pretty awesome. I used this photo because he doesn't have his full gallery available yet. And I thought this picture was pretty cool. I hope he doesn't mind that I'm showing it here. If it turns out he got a good shot of me, I may buy one and include in on a later post. |
Following the segment on the dam road, we headed back downhill, fast. Going into the race, I was a little worried about this hill. It just has some slight curves, but is mainly straight, with a slightly harder turn at the bottom. I was concerned about having 50 people on this descent at the same time. Turns out, my fears were unfounded. At that point, there were only about 4-5 of us anywhere near each other, and the road felt pretty open. I probably had quite a few pounds on the other guys, so I was able to descend a lot faster. I got up to 42.3 mph, which isn't all that fast for this hill. I know I've done it over 50mph before. But there was quite a crosswind, so I was pretty comfortable with this speed, and was still able to handle my bike. I also had some really low-profile climbing-type wheels, which helped, I'm sure. I'll bet people with the deep aero-wheels had a much harder time.
After that descent, the speeds really picked up. There is a long, gradual downhill followed by a long, gradual uphill. On the uphill section, I ended up riding in a paceline with two other guys for a while, which helped up keep our speed up. Pretty soon, though, one of the guys dropped off and it was just me and one other guy for a couple miles. We managed to pass another rider or two, I think.
Because I had ridden the course before, I knew where the uphill was going to crest, and I took off the best I could. From there, it was about 1.5 miles to the finish, and I just went as hard as I could. I ended up finishing the 17 mile course in 48:22, or about 20.9 mph average.
Final result: 26th place out of 55 starting riders. Two people didn't finish. Thinking they might have been in the crash at the beginning. You can see the results
HERE. My results are in the SM 5 category.
Overall, I'm happy with how I finished. I would have loved to have done better, but I really think I rode about as hard as I could. A couple things could help in the future: 1) Losing weight. I was pretty happy with my power, but my power-to-weight sucks. I want to keep my power numbers up while bringing my weight down. That will help tremendously. And 2), once everyone gets used to how to race, I'm hoping it becomes more of a tactical race instead of everyone just going all-out as hard as they can. Working as a group, we can all go faster without having to work as hard. Oh, and 3) I need to eat. As i WAS frantically trying to finishing warming up, I totally spaced on eating anything before the race. My race was at 12:49pm, so basically after lunchtime. I didn't want to eat a full lunch before the race, but I brought some stuff to snack on. And I completely forgot. I realized when I was done that I hadn't eaten anything. Oops.
There were a number of photographers on the course, but most haven't posted all their photos yet. If I see anything good, I'll include them on a later post.
After the race, I hung around to check on the rest of the team, and to get my free beer. Unfortunately, it was freezing cold, and I wasn't really in a beer kind of mood. I could have used some hot chocolate and warm clothes. But I hung around long enough to see one of my teammates take the podium for getting first place in our category. Amazing. His first race ever, and he snags first place. Overall, we had 7 guys in our group. Out of 55 racers, we placed in 1st, 10th, 26th (me), 40th, 43rd, 49th and 50th.
I haven't posted here in a few days, so I'll see if I can remember what I've been up to:
Saturday Food:
- Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
- Lunch: Ugh. Basically nothing. (See above). I had a Snickers and a beer after my race. And a Coke on the drive home.
- Dinner: MY wife and I went to the National Jewish Health Beaux Arts Ball again last night. We go pretty much every year. Black tie, fancy-schmancy event. We had whatever they were serving. Kale waldorf salad, big hunk o' steak, grits and veggies. One beer and a lot of water.
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| Fancy salad. |
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| What, you don't have aerialists at your dinners? |
Saturday Exercise:
- Gebhardt Automotive Cycling Classic.
Sunday Food:
- Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
- Lunch: Qdoba steak tacos. In between my daughter's soccer game and returning my tux.
- Dinner: Something new. Can't find the recipe. But it was chopped chicken breast and chicken sausage in a creamy wine sauce with onions and probably some other stuff. On a bed of sauteed cabbage. Awesome. Anything with sausage is good, even chicken sausage.
Sunday Exercise:
- Spinervals 28.0 - Aero Base Builder VI. Fairly easy workout to recover from yesterday, but still got in a good sweat.
Today's weigh-in: 188.0
