Racing season 2011 has begun. Today I did a training crit in Wilmington, DE. It was a very short course, probably only about 1K. We did ten laps (plus a neutral one), so it was really really short. That does not mean it was not difficult. It was very twisty, with half the course either setting up for a turn or coming out of one. About 25 or 30 people started.
The weather helped only a little. It was in the lower 40's with a stiff wind coming down the finishing straight.
I lined up with two other teammates, Pete and Mike. It's always great to have allies in a race.
The race started with a neutral lap so we all just cruised around the course at about 16 mph. As soon as we can through the start/finish, the pace picked up to 21 mph. I settled in around the fifth spot and hung on. Sometimes someone would move past me, so I'd move back up to stay in the first few spots.
On lap 5, it REALLY picked up. About 14 people went off the front of the pack and left everyone behind. After a hard week of training, I had a really hard time going with them and was dropped quickly.
I started to look around and see if I could salvage anything. I found Mike and drafted him for a few seconds to catch my breath. I saw another rider about 50 yards ahead and thought I could bring him back. So, I pulled around Mike and moved up. Once I caught that rider, I saw another rider ahead of him, who I then worked my way up to. There was one final gap to get me back to the breakaway group, so I set about closing that one too.
It took me almost two laps, but I managed to catch back onto the break. Unfortunately it took almost everything I had to bring them back. I held onto the pack for the next few laps.
With a half-lap to go, the rest of the pack surged to sprint for the finish. I started to go with them but my legs promptly refused. No one was behind me, so I just time trialed to the finish and finished maybe 8 or 10 seconds behind the pack.
How were the numbers? Pretty good.
My most common power output was 120 to 130 watts. In other words, I spent a lot of time soft-pedaling in the pack, letting others do the work.
My average power was 237 watts, which says that when I did pedal hard, I pedaled REALLY hard. According to my power meter download, on 27 different occasions I put out more than 500 watts for several seconds in a row (the longest was 15 seconds), then quickly returned to soft pedaling. I always tell people that crits are all about surging and then relaxing. The numbers sure proved it!
Even when I was chasing the pack, I still measured my efforts by jumping from one rider to the next.
The crit was barely 8 miles long, but we averaged 22.4 mph.
I counted: with 6 turns per lap and 10 laps, I turned 60 times. I only touched my brakes in 4 of them (usually when someone cut me off or when Pete tried to run me into the curb).
Not bad for my first crit since last April (and only my third since Sept 2006!)
Oh, and my weight this morning was 183.4 and 20.4% body fat.
