Thursday, March 6, 2014

Lago Vista: Bipolar weather and more tactical errors

Lago Vista, as everyone calls it, or "La Primavera" as it has been listed on the TXBRA calendar since I started racing (a source of confusion for me when I first started riding, and for some others I'm sure), is another one of Texas' oldest races. On Saturday, there was a piece of paper on display listing the winners since the early 90's. It is also the only road race on the Texas calendar which I have competed in three times now. I first competed in the juniors race in 2010, half a year after I had started racing. I recall being severly over dressed and dying halfway through that race. A year later, I also race at Lago Vista, that year both days. I did the juniors race on Saturday, where I lasted only a lap. It was 35 degrees outside, a quarter of a lap in it started pouring rain on us, and eventually that turned into hail. Coming down the steep fast descent I recall fearing for my life and I pulled out, frozen to the bone after one lap. The next day I overslept my alarm and called the promoter to get switched into the 34 field from the 45 field. I lasted as many laps as the 45 race would have been, which I considered a success at the time. Fun times.... but back to this year.

Course
Lago Vista is one of only two races on the TXBRA calendar that give an advantage to lightweights, like myself. Both Saturday and Sunday use the same 5.5 mile loop out in Lago Vista with the highest point being , one day is clockwise, the other counter clockwise. Going clockwise, as we did provides a much steadier climb and a much faster, twistier descent. Going clockwise you have a short downhill to a right hand turn from the start/finish line, then 2km @ 3% average grade, after which you get another 3km of rolling terrain. After this there are two right hand turns and the rest of the course goes mostly downhill, with multiple steep pitches hitting 14-15% along the way, and a couple little risers as well. Running into the start finish there is a fast downhill, and a steep upwards pitch. Sunday is exactly backwards, a number of steep sharp pitches on the way out and then a steady fast descent back down.

Saturday
Lago was going to be different from the last couple of races I had done, in that we were starting with only 2 guys. Kevin would be racing with the big boys in the P12 and Grant was in college station crushing souls at his collegiate race weekend. This left Alec and I, and naturally changed our tactics a bit. We no longer had strength in numbers and both needed to race to put ourselves into positions to win, Alec is great at positioning and timing in a sprint, so if it came down to a sprint he would be the guy to go.Me being a skinny rail, and having a skillset more suited to a breakaway would try to get into a break that would get away.

On the start line, Dark horse racing had 9 guys, all on the front as they had just finished posing for a nice team picture. As soon as we hit the first pitch two of their guys went up the road, two others went with and then the collect mass of darkhorse guys sat up, effectively creating a huge road block. The break took time out of us very very quickly. By the end of the first climb, I think they had a minute. I knew based on the make up of the group, with the sheer force of numbers darkhorse had in our race that the move was a dangerous one. I got myself up front to watch for things that would go. On the descent, however, I found myself quickly losing places. I'm not the best bike handler or descender, but even more so I don't trust others to do it well. I move backwards very quickly as I avoided getting close to people while going 50mph downhill. Each time I was able to get back up front before turning onto the climb again. During our 4th of 11 laps, I was sitting top 15 or so when we hit the base of the steady climb. This time it really strung out, we were starting to hit it hard to try and pull back the break. At times I could see the break for brief periods of time. When we hit the flat rolling section Kevin Kimbell of Blur racing was a little ways of the front, I looked around saw people were gassed and sensed the opportunity for a bridge. I put in a dig and quickly made it across. I sat on Kevin's wheel for a second and then pulled through to try and lift the pace and get us up to the leader. I'm not exactly sure how long I spent on the front other than "too long at too high of an effort." I was making headway on the group ahead quickly and then boom... Mason Quintana and Carla Villareal bolted past me. Kevin was quick to jump on their wheel... but I didn't have enough at that moment left for a hard jump. I tried but did not grap the wheel. I sat down and kept digging. Maybe I could claw my way back onto their wheel, but the power was starting to fade.... but I was still making headway on the break. Keep digging. I look over my shoulder and see the field gaining on me, I'm gaining on the break... look over again. It looked like the field was gaining on me faster than me on the break, I decided to sit up.

Bad move. As soon as I sat up the whole field did two, and the break never came back. My mistake here was putting in so much effort that I had no jump left. I should have pulled off earlier, worked with Kevin and kept and eye on activity behind us so I could have reacted to the move. If I had done less work, I would have made the break of the day... but I hadn't. Back in the field I sat in, I still had something left in the tank, and was going to need to use it at some time if I wanted to get back into that lead move. A half lap later, near the start finish I heard the moto say that the lead group had 2 minutes on us. On the steady climb, we hit it at a decent effort but not hard enough, I decided to go again. I got off and looked back, no reaction at all from the field. I decided to keep going, see what kind of headway I could make and perhaps someone else would decide to come play. A couple minutes later I looked over my shoulder and the field was out of sight. At this point I became antiquated with pain in my legs, and kept an eye on the power meter to make sure I didn't over cook anything, still lots of racing to be done, I kept it pegged at 260w, 2 minutes was going to take a while to bridge. When I hit the highest point I got a time report from the moto: 1 minute to each group. Making progress, and quicker than I had expected to. I decided that for the descent the best approach would be to go fast, but not try and make up any gaps. I wanted to keep those gaps steady, save a little bit of energy if I could and pull it back when we got back to the uphill where I had an advantage. Unfortunately, I eased off too much. When I hit to bottom it was 30 seconds back and 1:15 up the road. I didn't think I had the legs left for another 1.5 laps (looking at 20+ minutes) of bridge attempt. I kept it threshold as I hit the climb again but was caught by the field. Time to sit in till other people came out to play again.

Somewhere along the lines I had either used too much energy or not taken on enough food. I was fading fast. (probably the latter, as I'm getting better with food but still have a long ways to go. Not very comfortable taking in food on the group when going hard, like when we were climbing, or on flying fast descents) I sank back towards the back of the field. And the next couple laps were a blur, at 3 laps to go there was a split in the field and I was on the wrong side of it. Now racing for something like 25th, not something I was happy with. at 2 to go, I decided I needed to either get the two groups to come back together or to get across to the other group. I put in a 'all or nothing' type of effort. Trying to get every last ounce out of my legs and hopefully get across. The legs died far, far to quickly and I was done at that point. I finished up the lap and then my race was over.

Sunday
While Saturday was a gorgeous, sunny day with 80 degree temperatures, Sunday was 36 with scattered rain on the start line. On the way up to the race I had watched the temperature fall from 72 to 45, pretty incredible. I had seen a race start and finish with many, many people pulling out due to ttemperature issues (cold everything, shivering, inability to brake or shift). I lined up in a mish mash of winter gear, trying to stay away from flappy raing jackets while keeping myself warm and dry. Clothing all set to go, it was time to race. They shortened our race a whole lap due to the conditions (which I thought was really numb, make the race significantly shorter or don't). Anyways, without further ado we took off. The first lap was (thankfully) pretty tame, giving us all a lap to warm up, and for many to take off rain jackets once they had.

The next lap is when racing started to really happen. I saw Brendan Sharpe, a strong climber roll off the front along with three others (a dark horse and a DNA racing guy) on the steepest pitch of the day. I was positioned poorly, I could see things happening but not get out and go with it. I knew this was a dangerous move, 4 guys had just gone who were all clearly strong climbers (based on Brendan's strava hero status I had him picked as a guy to seriously watch), as well as guys from the three biggest teams in the race. My teammate Alec must have known too, without us talking he had gone to the front and drilled it on the descent. When we started to hit the climbs again, right as he peeled off I came out with some efforts at about 60% to see how the field reacted and who followed. I'd sit up and then go again... then the race really lit up. Attack after attack after attack. I followed 1, 2 ,3 moves. None of them went and then the 4th one that came was big, and I didn't have enough left to follow it. On the steepest slope of the course I did 12w/kg for 20seconds, and barely couldn't grasp to the move. 1/3 of the field was up the road, 1/3 turned around and said "some other day" which left a third of us just sitting at the back, 15 or so guys at first, with all but 3 of us with multiple teammates up the road. Race was over. I rode a couple more laps and worked the the other guys up the road... but really we just kept attacking each other and not working together which was getting us nowhere. Then a nice hard rainstorm hit us while we were headed downhill, I started to get really cold. 1/3 of the way up the climb, still cold, I turned around and headed down. I made it 5 laps in before calling it.

Both days I put in good strong efforts, but not when I needed to and it counted. Goal for future races: go hard less often, go harder when I go hard. Make each effort count for something.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Walburg and Pace Bend

I was really excited heading into this weekend, first race on the new team bike, and first time at one of the longest running race weekends. Overall the weekend pretty well for the Cat 2's as a team, but not without it's flaws, and I definitely have some improvements to make myself.

Walburg
The day of the Walburg Road Race has a mythic ability to attract high winds and terrible weather. Fortunately this year, we missed out on it's terrible weather abilities but the winds were dialed up by the end of the first lap. Going into this race, I wasn't really sure what to expect from the course or the racing. I've heard so many things about the race over the years "hardest race in texas" "centerline rule ruins the race" "rough pavement" "windy" but never raced it myself. I went into the race, not expecting much from myself in terms of results, but with a teammate mentality. I wanted to race aggressive, and make sure I was in early moves so that Grant and Kevin could save their matches for when it would matter.

During our extra long and slow neutral roll out I worked my way up into top 5, and as soon as attacks started flying, I started marking them. Over the first half of the first lap not much of anything went away, wind was almost completely dead, but not entirely, and I floated around the front 20 in the field. After our first right turn into a headwind, my teammate Alec launched a little attack. After he floated out there for a little while, I saw Paul Carty start to make a move to go across and jumped on his wheel. We went right across and aAec sat up once we came past. Paul too seemed to sit up a bit, and then I put in a dig of my own. I road off the front, but not hard. Going hard solo was a recipe for disaster. I wanted to see who would react and come across. Carlo Villarreal came across looked at me and we non-verbally agreed, game on. The field seemed to be giving us some room, so we decided to see how much we could take.

We weren't out front for all that long, but it sapped my legs pretty well. When we were brought back into the fray 5-10 minutes later I was able to get a spot top 10, but all "snap" had gone from the legs. At the next jump I went hurtling backwards and barely caught onto the back of the field. A mile or so later we took a right hand turn and people went down. I had to chase again to catch back on (and honestly wouldn't have made it without a . I was mad at myself at this point, I had wanted to be up front for the new more technical, narrow section of the course to make a move. Instead I was at the back, closing gaps at every turn.

When we turned back onto the main road, I had been gapped and closed the gap probably 6 times at least. Wasted a ton of energy. I moved up in the tailwind section as quickly as I could. I needed to not be at the back. When we hit the crosswinds the shit really hit the fan. Most of the field decided "to hell with the centerline rule" and the moto hardly protested. Fortunately my teammates Grant and Alec had made their way up to a break up the road, unfortunately I was in a world of hurt. I refused to cross the centerline which left me with little to no draft with a very strung out pack. I eventually decided to forgo my place in the gutter and try to form a second echelon. No one followed me suit... so I decided to drill it and try and get up to the front echelon. Next thing I knew I was out the back.

Alec rode his heart out for Grant up the road, which paid off with a second place for Grant. Made me feel like a worse teammate knowing and seeing just how much Alec had given everything to make it happen for him. I need to get more out of myself in the future.

Things I did well: eating and hydrating, for a change, being agressive. Things I did poorly: too aggressive when it didn't matter, not able to be aggressive when it did.

Pace Bend

A good race on Sunday can make up for a bad one on Saturday. It was hot and gorgeous outside. Plan for Pace Bend was to again make sure the team was represented in the early move, but to this time be more selective in what I followed and to not sell myself out into any move I went into. First lap, I again situated myself near the front and watched a couple moves go and come back. Nothing dangerous, not worth spending our efforts on. Next lap, for reasons unknown to me or my teammates at the time, Kevin Fish slow rolled off the front and took out a nice little gap on the field. A couple guys bridged up to him, but nothing insane. The gap went out to a max of about 30 seconds and came back a lap later, when I made sure to get myself up front to follow any counters. To my surprise nothing really started flying right away, as we hit the steepest climb on the backside of the course, the pace stayed pretty high. When we got over the steep part and onto the last, shallow pitches of the climb I put in a little kick. Next thing I knew there were 4 of us off the front. We worked well together in a good solid quick rotation with 30 second pulls. We dug in hard for one lap to open up the gap, and one lap in had a 55 second gap. At this point we slowed up a bit, and some disfunction started showing in our group. One of the riders (a think finance guy) was incapable of keeping a steady pace on the front. It was HARD uphill and soft pedalling down it.

Pulling our early break around a corner on a beautiful Texas day.


After two laps the gap was down to 45 seconds. At this point there was a question which wasn't really addressed within the group, did we want to try to maintain a gap or not. In accordenance with my pre-race strategy, I wasn't driving the group at all. I knew I had strong (resting) teammates behind me, and that if we came back one of them would be able to make something happen. half a lap later, 25 seconds. At this point we moved through the now open feedzone for the first time, this caused some nice disorder in our small breakaway. On the other side of the feed we heard 20 seconds. Group was not yet visible but we knew a catch was coming. Then we saw the group come over and a counter come across to us, Grant in tow. I had been largely expecting to try and fall into the top couple riders but immediately put in a dig to get up to their speed. If the 8 of us had started working together kept the pace up, it could have been awesome, but it wasn't meant to be. We kinda looked around for someone to set pace and then 1, 2, 5, 10 riders came across. Next thing we know whole field is back together.

I had made a big mistake off the front, not enough fluid intake. It was 85 degrees and sunny, hot when you consider how our winter has gone thus far this year. My mouth was dry, and as a teammate informed me I had crusty salt all over my jersey and bibs. I drank some from the bottles I had on my bike, but they were warm, and had a drink mix in them which at this point just made my mouth sticky. Next lap I looked for Ian who was feeding us, but didn't see where he was situated until it was too late. Next lap (7 laps in) I grabbed a bottle, I was in recovery mode/ hang on mode at this point. Grant had been lobbing attacks up front and gotten off with a group of 8 or so, I needed to be up front covering moves but I just felt like I was turning into a raisin.

It took some water over the head, back, hands, and lots of intake over the next couple laps for me to start to feel ok. Finally with 2 laps to go I was starting to feel like I was alive again. I saw attacks start to fly, but was too far back. I needed to get up there and match moves in case anything got across to Grant. I got up front too late though. A group of 20 ended up making it across and we had no teammates in it. By the time I got upfront the move had gone and anything else that attempted to go was getting shut down. At this point, Alec and I started discussing our end strategy. Alec said if he smelled the opportunity for a flyer he was going to go for it, I told him I though I could do well in the uphill sprint finish. At 3k to go, Alec made a move with two other which stuck until the line. I positioned myself terribly for the sprint (dead last wheel going into it out of the remenants of our field), but when I kicked at about 500m to go, the base of the finishing climb I quickly got up to the pointy end of affairs. I had to hit the brakes to get around someone who had gone early and died and then surged again and ended up 5th out of our field. Grant ended up getting 5th.

At the end of the race, I was happy with the win, extremely happy with my legs, but dissapointed in my execution. I had raced tactically smart early on, but failed to set myself up for success with my hydration and nutrition. Played catch up, not put myself in the moves that went across to a teammate up the road, and placed myself poorly for a finishing sprint which I could/should have won. I need to not be my own worst enemy. On the bright side: it was my first race finish in a race field with no one lower than a cat 2 in it, but I expect more of myself.