Monday, July 7, 2008

this crit has a hill

race: Vacaville Grand Prix
category: 35+ Masters 4/5
field: 61
conditions: warm, 80s at 9a
time: 16 laps
team mates: none

course: is 1.1 miles in length, a good series of right left turns before you approach the climb. the climb is similar to Benecia

goals were simple: finish with the pack and stay seated on the climbs,
which basically equals, don't get pulled and don't blow up on the climb.

Arriving early I was surprised to hear that the event was running on time. My race starts at 8:50a while I was warming up I was watching guys get off their trainers at 8:30a, I stayed on for another 10 minutes opening the legs for the amount of climbing necessary to finish 16 times up that hill.

From the start we shoot off with speed, nothing horrible just guys fighting for position for the tight right hand turn and good placement on the first climb. It ended up being pointless since the hill was closed for traffic, there was plenty of room to go around those blowing up on the incline. In past years that would normally be me.

For most of the race I sat in the middle, we go fast we slow down we go fast again only to slow down to a crawl on some of the tighter turns, only with four to go did we start to build up speed, while I swear I was in the middle I suddenly was on the back, that's because a good 20 guys were gone from the race. I moved myself back up just in time to watch a Davis guy shoot up the hill, I revved up and moved up to the front middle.

With one lap to go I was sitting in about 30, we were all strung out, there was several attacks on the climb it was all I could do to just hang on. I moved past a few guys on the flat right before the line, finishing the day in 24th.

For those interested in the power data, I attached the training peaks snap shot of yesterday's race. In cycling peaks I was able to take off my warm up and cool down which my normalized power ended up at 287.

short term memory loss

short term memory loss was in full affect in my races at the davis criterium. i raced both the 35+ masters 4 and elite 4s while the e4 have a reputation for craziness it was the 35+ 4s that were not recalling the last lap. it was a combination of solo crashes, pedal scraping and overcooking the turns. somehow i survived that race taking 44th. waited for 2.5 hours for a fast e4 race, full field came in 48th.