Tour of Richaland County

Yesterday was the kick off for my 2008 racing program. I wanted to race a bit earlier this year but as everyone knows in Northeast Ohio, almost every race prior to this one had been cancelled due to weather. It was for this reason that I was expecting a huge turn out at this race. I know it wasn’t super warm out, but it was above 40 degrees and sunny and couple those two elements with cabin fever, I would have imagined that every race within a 200 mile radius would want to get out to test their fitness on this challenging course. You can imagine my surprise when I only saw about two dozen racers in the Cat 4-5 race. Oh well, better odds for me, especially with the finish line at the bottom of the climb this year. Wow, maybe I have a shot this year.

It was nice to see a lot of Stark Velo at this race. There was almost so many it appeared like it was a training ride where we invited other riders. I think every field (with the exception of the 1/2/3 and the women’s) had 4 or 5 riders. Joining me in the Cat 4-5 race were Matt Turi, Sebastian Birch, new guys Greg Fletcher and Greg Banic. Everyone talks about this race and the big climb on it. Now racing this course for the second time, I don’t think that climb is as decisive as everyone feels it is. In my opinion, it’s the miles of steep rollers that come after it that are much more painful and selective. Just like last year, that’s what would cause my undoing. For me, it came on the second lap, on the last steep roller just before making the final right hand turn onto that valley road. I lost contact with them and although they stayed within eye site, I could never bridge back up to them. Getting dropped sucks big time, but it gives some time for reflection. I guess this is the case with every race but if only I would have had a bit more fitness, I really think I could have had a shot at this race. Tactically this race was easy. It’s not like there were guys attacking all over the place on the hills. In fact, it was completely the opposite, it was just a steady grind all the way through and the course is what selected who finished and who didn’t. In the two dozen or so starters, I counted 9 in front of me when I fell off the back. In some weird sense, I was happy to have lasted to at least to that point. If I could keep anyone from catching me, I could have a top 10 place for the day! I just wouldn’t tell anyone, except for the blogging community that it came a minute after the rest of the winners….

On the last half lap, again on those darn rollers, I could see a few riders coming up from behind me. All of a sudden I heard “Is that you Miner?” I looked back again and saw a bit of yellow so I figured it was one of my teammates and said yes. Turns out the yellow was of an independent rider and the one who knew me was Jay from Breakaway. Check out his blog when you get the chance, always good reading. Anyway, turns out Jay and the indy were in my field so now I had a few guys to ride to the finish with and make it a bit more interesting. We rode along well together for the next several miles where we picked up another indy rider from our field. Yes, if I could now out sprint these guys I could get ninth place! Ok, not so big of a deal. When we were on the last miles of the valley road, we were doing a paceline at the urging of one of the independent riders. I don’t mind doing this and it helps everyone get to the finish quicker, but the problem was it was so slow. Watching my speed and power meter, I had gone through this section solo on the previous lap about 3 mph and a few dozen watts faster. I thought to myself, when should I attack this group and just ride in by myself? I also thought, would that make me a jerk to attack this group? I don’t want to be viewed as that, but I also didn’t want a bunch more riders catching me from behind because we were barely doing 20 mph. So fortunately, it wasn’t me but Jay who put the hammer down. I quickly found his wheel and a quick glance of who was left and we were down to three riders. From there, it was a nice steady rotation until about a mile until the finish where I found myself stuck in front, it seems as though the indy rider didn’t want to come around me anymore. Funny how we fight for the scraps. Ok, no big deal, that’s bike racing and if I’m going to lead you out, I’m going to do my best to make you suffer a bit while doing it. I quickly ramped it up into the finish and soon we were doing 29/30 mph going into the last few hundred meters. I took a quick look behind me and saw Jay furiously sprinting to make up a small gap on my wheel. I started sprinting but couldn’t quite hold him off; he nipped me at the line. D@#n you Jay….D@#n you!!! Just kidding, it was a blast. Not sure where I ended up finishing but I guess it doesn’t really matter.

Ok, so that was my race in no man’s land. One of these days, I’ll have a sweet report from the front of the race.

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Malabar Farms Race:
Duration: 1:34:22
Work: 1375 kJ
TSS: 166.7 (intensity factor 1.029)
Norm Power: 283
VI: 1.17
Distance: 30.59 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 774 243 watts
Heart rate: 63 204 166 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 91 rpm
Speed: 2.7 37.4 19.5 mph
Pace 1:36 22:27 3:05 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 442 104 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 817 229 lb-in

Another AZ. Pic

I'm really off my game this week. Thanks to jal for giving me the heads up on this one....

Tucson Training Camp

It's that time of year again when all my friends head out to Tucson, Arizona for their annual training camp and I get stuck here in Ohio to deal with this lousy March weather. Well, to make myself feel better, I like to have fun with the pictures that they send back. I pray to God that they never learn PhotoShop.

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