South Jersey Training Crit #4, 4/5 raceI finally made it to a South Jersey crit.
To make the 7:15 start, I left my place about 5:15. That makes for an early morning, and it's not any better when the expected temperature at the start was 30 degrees. It was not even light out when I first got there.
I barely got a warm up. Basically, I didn't want to get out of the car it was so cold! So, I sat in the car with the heat on, rolled around for 5 minutes, then the race started.
It was a pretty flat, 3-mile course. It's not really rectangular, with two long legs, one very short one (barely 1/4 mile), and one downhill leg. We were doing 6 laps.
I spent way too much energy in the beginning. Any time three or four guys got off the front, I tried to bring them back. I quickly realized that with about 40 people in the pack and a stiff headwind on the back leg, it was unlikely that a group would get away. Instead, I focused on riding well in the pack.
I made sure I was on the downwind side of the road so I was protected from the wind from both the front and the side. I tried to stay as close to the guy in front of me and beside me as I could. I stayed close to the front, but didn't pull. Any time a group started to get away, I sat in the pack and waited for someone else to bring it back.
On that back stretch, sometimes the group just cruised along, slowing to 18 or 19 mph. I just sat in the group protected from the wind and watched everyone else attack and get brought back.
I found that I need to work on my high speed turns. Coming into a turn at 30 mph, I constantly found myself braking a bit and taking the turn wide.
On the last lap, I made the mistake of not responding when guys started surging to the front. I should have moved up with them. Coming out of the last turn, probably 18 guys were still in front of me. I fought for a better position all the way to the line.
My other mistake was trying to sprint in too big a gear. I came out of the downhill and tried to sprint in the same gear I was just descending in. Instead of shifting, I tried to just muscle my way to go faster.
Despite those mistakes, I passed 4 or 5 guys in the final straight and fought one guy all the way to the line. I think he got me.
I thought about doing the 3/4 race afterward, but my hands and feet were so numb that I was not really interested.
Not bad for my third race in three weeks. I'm feeling much more comfortable in the pack and I'm able to hang on, even when there are pretty hard accelerations. Next weekend, I'm planning on two races: a 36-mile race on Saturday and a 40-mile race on Sunday.
A few numbers:
Distance: 17.6 miles
Finishing Time:45:17
Avg Speed: 23.1 mph
Max Speed: 32 mph
Avg Power: 218 watts (260 normalized)
Max Power: 1060 watts
Time not pedaling: 8:14
Yesterday morning, I was 181.4 pounds (I didn't get a weigh in this morning).
