Am I race-ready? Not really. Am I going to do it? You bet. Am I going to do it after riding Jackson's local tough guy Saturday ride? Umm..sure. Am I going to regret that choice? Probably. But was it worth it?
You bet! How could I possibly miss the chance to ride vigorously around in circles, after riding vigorously out and back, on a Sunday morning? Plus I would get to race with and cheer for my new teammates on Absolute Racing.
So the weekend started with Davis, Ryan, and I making a nice Friday jaunt down to Jackson, stopping over to visit Davis's dad, and getting up early to ride a nice vigorous 75 from one of Ridgeland's local shops, The Bike Crossing. Besides having a beautiful shop floor, a great range of road and tri bikes, and a crackerjack staff, Bike Crossing also sponsors Davis's new team, a bunch of up-n-comer go-getters, the future of Jackson's racing scene. They are riding hard, goofing around, and getting faster every day. ...Oh to be 22 again. Actually, I would have been an awful racer as a 22-year-old, so never mind; being old and crusty has its benefits. Anyway, that ride turned into an awful/delightful sufferfest, trying to hang onto the strong riders' wheels while coughing up chunks of lung. At ride's end, Davis showed that he was completely willing to sacrifice race results for local glory, charging hard into the wind to cross the final sprint point first. I'm pretty sure that was his most important season goal.
After a night generously hosted by Davis's mom, we packed up and split westward for the land of gators, gumbo, and a guaranteed hurtin', arriving a couple hours later in Monroe, Louisiana to find our teammates ready to go, a checkered flag announcing the start of the time trial. I picked up my number, noted my start time, and got to warming up. I was in no kind of mood--I was pretty sure I had fried my legs that week, especially the day before, and I was disorganized for the races. It always takes one or two races to get my routine back in order.
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Cycling Yardsale. |
At the start, I settled into a nice rhythm--my heart rate monitor was not picking up my signal (so either it or I was offiicially dead for 28 minutes), but I knew ballpark where I should be. I cranked. I had a tailwind going out, and the course was pancake flat, only one or two easy angles, and just a little stretch of rough pavement. I was moving, and I could tell it--I hit the turnaround in 13 minutes even. It felt naughty. And turning back into that (now) headwind, I was immediately punished for my bad behavior. I skittered sideways, I bucked the wind, I lost my cool, and I lost two minutes on the return trip. Gusts would occasionally kick my back disc wheel around, but by the end, I was a bit more comfortable with just letting the back of my bike wander all over the road, as long as I wasn't near any other riders. Crashing?!? There's no crashing in TT'ing!! I think my Garmin's distance reading was off, and I didn't realize I was as close as I was to the finish line, so after only a short surge I pulled through, coughed up one last chunk of lung, and cooled down. I guessed I had done okay. After we were all packed up, and as we were heading over to get lunch, they posted results:
Scanning up the row from some logical place in the middle, where I belonged, I couldn't find my name. What...did I forget to pin my number on? Was I DQ'd? Did I somehow manage to screw up the only kind of race one has (more or less) control over?!? Wait...what? Second? Overall?!? If this was the Race of Truth, I felt like a liar. As awesome as it might be to be closer to Frank Moak in a TT, I felt like I stole something. Not many chances to sneak out of a LAMBRA TT in second overall. And my only goal for the race (admittedly, with no good basis for my expectation) was to hit 28 flat. Got it, and got a podium. That, I thought, is a durn nice morning's work. Made possible, of course, by Tim's wheels. Third through sixth were so close just a little drag would have knocked me way down.
The crit, now, that was another (1/2/3) matter. I've done my share of cat 3 crits, and I don't even like them. Combined 1/2/3 races...Ugh. So I wouldn't say that I was all fat and sassy (farthest thing from it), but I did enjoy the rare moment of having my name called out second at the start line. That's okay--the cat 1s and 2s in the field were having none of it. The pace started high, and even with a good warmup, Scott was making it hard for me to do anything but sit in. When the early kicking started, I was a little out of position, and I couldn't jump until after two quick corners, and the attackers had gained a cool hundred meters. Crap. I came around, chased them down, and sat in just long enough to get ready to do it again. I realized quickly that if anyone in an Absolute jersey were going to stand on the podium, it would be Scott, and I needed to keep him from doing too much work chasing.
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Just so we're all clear...being on the front does NOT mean I'm doing awesome. |
So I made it my business, and put my head down and closed gaps whenever I could. It made everything simple and fun: don't worry about hurting, don't worry about results, just close the gaps. I did a far from perfect job, but I was pleased with myself for grabbing a serious wheel or two when they took quick flyers, and after Moak took a turn off the front, I pulled for a full three minutes chasing him down. I'm not saying I pulled him back, but I guessed someone was going to have to do it, and it wasn't going to be Scott.
After that last pull, I almost got dropped, and watched as Scott led four riders into the race-winning break. My work done, I sat up, popped the parachute, and was joined by Woz. At that point, we were only concerned with making sure Scott felt secure in the break, and since Herring Gas had a rider in the break as well (the sprinterly gent who eventually won the race), this was not too tall an order. There was a little surging after that, and we let one other strong HG rider get away, but we didn't think he could bridge up at that point, or I guess it would have been head down again and grind away to see if we could bring him back.
The end results: Scott on the podium, Woz and I survived to the group finish. All in all, it was a good leg-opener, a nice TT result, and (not sure I'll get to say this too many times in my life) and an awesome post-race dinner at O'Charley's...
Congrats to the other Absolute racers, including the handsome and charming Wozniak, who took 2nd with a strong effort in the cat 3 TT. Thanks to Monroe's local cycling community and the USAC officials who all spent a good part of their Sunday out in the chilly morning and windy afternoon...without those folks, we cyclists would have much less fun on these early spring weekends...
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