Race #1:
My first serious road race, since I would say I hit decent shape (i.e. holding 300W for an hour or so).
Unfortunately, this raced was doomed long ahead of time. I came down with the flu on Tuesday night. I was so sick I had to miss work Wednesday with fever, and work from home on Thursday. I could barely manage moderate aerobic efforts during the week, and did manage to train a little bit to help with recovery. But this was far from the week I needed coming off of a really intense week of training. With over 600 miles the previous 2 weeks. I had mostly recovered by Friday and was well enough to go out for dinner to the parents' house. Which was fine, but not ideal pre-race food. Additionally, I forgot to charge my Garmin so the battery was dead, preventing me from having GPS during the race.
The morning of was not bad. I headed to race and got there about 45 minutes early. But in my haste, I forgot to eat the oatmeal I had brought for myself. I arrived, registered and peed. But there was a delay in start so we had to wait an extra 20 minutes. By the time the race started I had to pee again, but too late... I would have to hold it. It was hot and sticky, especially for early January (about 78' and humid).
I raced the 4/5 open Men's category; looking around, I knew I was the strongest rider in the field (on normal days), excepting maybe my team-mate Phil. I had trained with and knew I had better top-end power and endurance than the people around me. Only one rider, from Austin, my friend Justin M., I thought could hang with Phil and I over a distance.
But the day of was hot, and sticky, and with a 15 mph headwind. And it would turn out to be a rather slow and gentle race with very little excitement, except for one sprint as we turned on the loop portion of the route. A crash in front of me a rider lost control on a sprint and went over the bars. I dodged the wreckage.
The pace was otherwise very gentle, only averaging only about 175 W. Our group of 3 riders had planned to jump ahead in a section of skinny road. But we were not well organized, and did not know where each other were. Come time for the planned jump, I made the jump, but none of my confederates could follow. Only a few of the team that had been blocking all day, joined me, so after a bit, I gave up and drifted back in. I decided to make another jump, after the turn off of the road onto a brief 3-4 mile tailwind section. I tried to jump again, and was joined by one other rider. We held about 400W. But looking back, my jump was really more of a hard pedal. In hind sight, I should have gone out much harder (500-600W). We shattered the field a bit, dropping a slower pack, but we were unable to drop some of the bigger guys who would end up beating us in a sprint. In the end the group re-grouped into a massive pack as we turned back into the long 10 mile headwind stretch heading back to the finish.
On this stretch I would end up pulling wayyyyyy too much. Averaging 250W for over 30 minutes as my opponents just watched me do work. In reality, 250W is well within my ability, but I was working much harder than them, and I continued to work until about 1k from the finish. This ultimately was my demise, which was really dumb. I should have either gone out really hard, or waited for the pack sprint. Instead, I made a foolish jump about 400m out. I flew up the ride side and was slammed by the headwind. Someone spun past me on the left, Taylor Pruet. Panicked, I grinded rather than spun, and as I reached exhaustion, I was quickly eaten up by the passing pack. I ended up finishing in the back of the pack at 32/69 riders. But this was much worse than I had hoped. In the end, I had bad luck, but more fatally, I made a series of mental mistakes.
Without the team support, I needed to have conserved energy, marked a good rider, and let their team lead me out. But, there's always next week. I am excited to try again this next weekend at the oatmeal roadrace in Austin. The hills should hurt the (more) fat riders.
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