I just noticed that I haven’t posted anything since July 2012. Rather than write up six separate posts, I’m going to give the reader’s digest version of each month.
August
Grant Park Criterium – This was a late season crit that I was looking forward to racing, but most of my training was higher mileage road racing type efforts and 1 mile hill repeats. I felt good at the start, and made a bad early move. I was riding fifth or six wheel a lap or two into the race when I saw that Ty Magner had a flat. Several strong riders took off immediately, and I jumped on for the ride. Unfortunately, it quickly rotated to me and when I tried to pull through, these guys didn’t let me off the front very easily. I ended up pulling hard the front side and again on the backside which put me into the red about 3 laps into the race. Not smart. So, I slowly moved my way to midpack to recover for about 10 minutes before moving back up. It was that kind of day for me, but I did use my head later in the race. There was a small group a few meters in front of me with my new team represented in the group. Rather than pedal up to them given it was only about 10 ft on a flat narrow section of the course, I eased up next to one of my new teammates which created the break at the 30 min mark. The 9 riders that we basically placed into the break survived the rest of the race, and I ended up finishing 22nd. While it was an uneventful race, it was eye opening to see how easy it was to create that break with a teammate in the move.
The following week, I officially joined the Litespeed-BMW Cycling Team. One of the most exciting aspects of riding for the team is the ability to ride for various riders and play different roles. Typically, I was forced to freelance a lot on the road or chase everything down. Now, I’ll get to either support a protected rider or allow the race to play out a little more knowing we have several cards to play.
The first race with Litespeed-BMW Cycling was the always challenging River Gorge Pro/1/2 Road Race. This year, BMC/Hincapie Development controlled the race early and kept everything together until Sand Mountain. Unfortunately, our best rider in the race, Chris Brown, flatted around mile 16 and had to chase back on for about 7 miles. I initially dropped back to help him pace back up. I drifted about 500 m off the back of the pack that started to pull away pretty quickly. Then, I saw the neutral vehicle about a mile or two miles back without Chris drafting behind it. I assumed that he had an issue and dropped out, so I tried to ride back to the pack. At first, I tried to ride at a steady state to avoid getting tired, but then I got nervous that it was taking too long to catch them, and I went into TT mode. I caught up pretty quickly at that point, but I probably burned a match or two doing it. About 10 miles later, we reached Sand Moutain, and I was still stuck in the back. Once we hit the mountain, the pack exploded. I quickly hit the gas and moved up on the outside passing a ton of riders. I was definitely going way to hard at the base of the climb because I caught the some of the stronger climbers within a minute and latched onto their wheels. I ended up behind my teammate Anders Swanson who was on Phil O’Donnel’s wheel. We passed a buch of riders and were climbing at around 1/2 mph faster a couple minutes into the climb. About halfway up the climb, things got difficult for me, and my fast start was catching up with me. I did 440watts at 162lbs the first 5 min of the climb, and then I got scared that I was going to pop as we neared the top. I didn’t know if there was 500 m or 1 mile left. It turned out, there was only about 300m left to the top, but I pulled back and watched Anders and Phil ride away while a few riders caught and passed me, as well. Once on top, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to bridge up to the front group just ahead about 100m or wait up for the group behind me that was 40m behind. I saw my teammate Chris Brown who would normally be ahead with Anders was behind since he chased back after the flat for 7 miles. I waited for his group and pulled them for the next mile or two to close the gap to the group in front. I rotated back and things got slow again, so I came back to the front and drilled it for a few more minutes until we were within about 20 m of the group in front. Eventually, a few others bridged across given our close distance, and we became one big group of about 25 riders. Unfortunately, a few hard efforts caught up with me on the final climb, and I cramped badly in my left leg. A few weeks later I realized that I had a small power discrepancy in the left leg which required some isolated drills and hopefully will fix the left leg cramping issue in 2013. I tapped out a decent pace on the final 2.5 mile climb and finished 24th behind some good names and in front of some good names. All in all, it was a decent result given the way I rode during the race and different objectives I was focused on at different times throughout the race. My goal for 2013 is to race it at 159 – 160lbs without some of those hard efforts and better pack placement. I am confident that will be enough to get into the top 15 or better.
September
September brought the end of season. I talked my wife into a final race weekend in Anderson, SC called the Labor Day Omnium. It was a really well run race, and the Pro/1/2 field was strong drawing most of the strongest riders from the Southeast. I went with a few early moves in the circuit race, but I was trying to be careful to stay with the favorites. I was watching Robert Sweeting and Frank Travieso closely, so I didn’t notice when either UHC GA 786 project or Team Type 1 had their team sit on front and ease up to create a split of 10 riders up the road. By the time I saw them, it was too late. Brian Toone and I tried to chase, but there was nobody willing to help us. I’m not sure if I was asleep at the wheel or it was a perfectly executed teamwork. I think about it a lot because it ended up being my last race of the season, and I was in good form in terms of w/kg with plenty of rest heading into that weekend. I came away in 27th place which was not close to where I was planning to finish. Unfortunately, my wife got crashed out of the Cat 4 women’s road race the next day, so we spent all Sunday in the hospital. So, that was a terrible end to the season.
October
With the start of Fall, I started racing in the Georgia Cyclocross Series. The first race was in Rocky Face, GA, and it was a tough and rocky course filled with single track. I had been training for a few weeks around the fields at a local high school, but I didn’t have the muscles to handle the steep inclines and descents in dirt. I finished 9th in the Pro/1/2/3 race and was solid midpack. The following weekend was in Marietta, GA at the Jim Miller Fair Grounds Parking lot for the North Georgia State Fair. The course is a local CX practice course, and I was able to come out for a couple pre-rides which helped a lot. I decided not to go for the hole shot and instead focus on following the front wheels. This helped as the race was fast and several riders crashed towards the end of the race. I was sitting 3rd right on the 2nd place wheel of Brandon Pruitt heading down the back side of the course. I jumped ahead of him on a slow pavement uphill and got a small gap. I had enough of a gap to take the win, but I dropped my chain when I put my bike down after the final run-up. I panicked a bit and lost about 10 seconds. He passed me after about 5 seconds, so I’m sure he was pleased when he saw me with my fingers stuck in my chain rings with 1/3 lap to go. In any event, it was the 2nd race of the season, my second Pro/1/2/3 race ever, and I got on the podium, so it was a good result. Since my wife’s wrist was still broken, I decided to skip the 3hr drive to Augusta the following week. I didn’t touch my cross bike at all that week. Then, the following week, we again skippped a double weekend in Savannah.
November
I went another week without touching the cx bike. The next week, I stayed off the bike for a 3rd straight week and was starting to think about switching back to road training for good. I find cx to be fun when you’re racing or preparing for a race, but I’d prefer to ride my road bike if I”m just going for a training ride. Also, I built up my new Litespeed L1R, and it was like the kid with the new toy, and I wanted to ride it. After 3 weeks off the cx bike, I decided to show up for a double weekend in Conyers. On the first lap preriding, I rolled a tubular and hurt my ribs pretty bad. So, I skipped racing that day and the next. I was in pain the following week, so I didn’t ride the cx bike for a 4th week. Finally, on the following Sunday, I showed up at Centennial High School for the CX Crusade race and went through one of the worst racing experiences of my life. The back hurt, locked up, and there were no legs. It didn’t help that I rode 55 miles on a group ride the day before, but the pain was mainly due to not riding the cx bike at all for 4 weeks.
So, the plan is to finish out the final 3 Georgia Cross races in the series. If I can ride the CX bike at least once a week, I will not be a strong CX racer, but at least I’ll avoid the bad back pain from last week and finish out the series.
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