Archive for February, 2010

Day 1

So today’s race was good, and definitely an experience!

Annapolis was sunny at mid 30’s, a pretty nice day really, and we were on the Naval Base (almost didn’t get through security haha), with the same criterium course as last year so I knew it.

So the race started out pretty mild, I got a great start even though I showed up to the line a little late by sneaking into the front line on the right side, which is the right side to be on for that part of the race.  Here’s a map to help explain what I’ll be talking about:

A short, challenging course!

So yeah that’s the course, and we are going clockwise. (or as we decided today, regular threaded direction).

<tangent>On another completely unrelated note, have you ever wondered how large an acre is? well, it’s defined to be roughly the area that an ox can plow in one hour!</tangent>

And so after about 10 laps of racing, probably 2/3 of our 30 minutes, Navy had been pulling the whole way.  3-4 guys doing all the work, and the whole time I was sitting right behind them, exactly where I wanted and needed to be.  Their coach was yelling at them to send one guy off, and have the other relax on like every lap, and finally I heard one of them say “next lap.” I paid close attention, and sure enough one of them attacked hard off the front of the race! I got a slightly late jump, but thought that this break may win the race, so I went for it.  It was at about the start finish line, which is really fast, and us two were alone going into the BRUTAL wind coming off the water on the back side. (left side on the map).  He started about 20meters in front of me, I closed it to about 10 going into that section, and we both sprinted balls out through that wind.  I had about caught him for the right turn, and then it  goes into a decent little uphill, and checking behind me it looked the field was just getting around the corner into the wind! But then, as we started to hit it up the hill, my legs were just done.  I didn’t have power left, catching him in a dead sprint in the most brutal wind had completely gassed me.  So much so, that I had to relax and let him go…if only I had another 10 seconds of effort in me!! The chase group and field caught me, although the field was only about 15 deep at this point…and I struggled to hang on to both.  I definitely sprinted too hard, but I was so close.  I ended up just chillin and trying to recover, drifting off the back of the field, and frustrated that I had lost it in the attack. I would feel a little better, rip a harder lap, and then relax again for the rest of the race…and gave a hard last two laps to pick off two Navy guys and finish 13th.  I didn’t care at all, or have any idea where, I finished at that point, I had pretty much failed. I was really pissed at the time.

But now, I know that I went for it, (the Navy guy that broke won solo), but just didn’t have it today. Lauren told me that I should sprint up Nellie’s Cave (massively steep road in BBurg) hahah, I don’t think she has any idea what road she is talking about though haha it’s massive.

I tried to meet up with Zach Barbaro, who goes to the USNA but he was out and wasn’t going to back till later that night.  I was suprised that he had the time off, seeing as he’s a freshman at the naval academy.

Reid did a video interview of me, and caught me when my frustration was just beginning to taper down…I was just so close to being 1/2!  The interview should be up Monday when Ben Rice gets a change to hook up his camera, and it’ll go here:

[video coming soon]

The rest of the day I pretty much just watched some more bike racing, oh something else I wanted to mention was that in that 180 degree corner, I’m pretty sure that I was scraping my RIM on pavement, it was so steep going into it… Yeah and then we just drove back to Lyndsay’s and ate dinner and pretty much chilled. That’s all for day 1, more action to come tomorrow in the ITT!

Day 2: Individual Time Trial

Advertised as a 17-mile, rolling course, I was pretty excited to do the TT.  When we got to the school where we parked though, it was snowing pretty hard.  That was an hour and half before the first people went off, which meant I had another 53 minutes until my start, which was at 1053 (naval time) haha.  Fortunately, the snow let up, and I warmed up on the trainer before heading to the start line.  With my aero helmet on, and my arm pads in place, I was ready.

I went hard out, and it felt like I was going pretty far downhill all the way to the turnaround point, with a strong headwind though, and I made it to the turnaround point in 20:30, not thinking to check my mileage too.  Even though it was going to be uphill, I expect close to the same time on the way back, and at about 35 minutes was about to pick up the pace to the finish.  The hills on the way back didn’t feel bad at all, I only got out of the saddle twice.  Just to make sure before I hit it hard and used everything I had to finish, I checked the mileage, expected only 1.5-2miles for the last 5 minutes, but my mileage read 12 miles, which meant I had 5 miles to go!!  So, instead of hitting it harder, I relaxed to save effort for the finishing stretch…and about two miles later I looked up and saw the finish! So I sprinted to the finish….with a total distance of 14.3 miles on cyclocomputer.  They had measured the course wrong, and I had slowed down for the last two miles that I should’ve been finishing strong on….I was pretty pissed. How hard is it to measure a course?? And that I had not looked mileage at the turnaround, or paid attention to landmarks, and didn’t go off of my elapsed time…but it’s hard to think so clearly in the middle of a hard effort I guess.

Nevertheless, I finished in 10th place, but with an extra 30 seconds that I’m SURE I would’ve had…I would’ve been 6th!! Oh well…guess I learned to pay better attention to the landmarks to know where I am on a course.

Here’s a rant of mine about how they can’t measure a TT course haha: [video coming soon]

I haven’t had time to stitch them together, but I also took some stop-motion pictures which I hope are going to come out really cool.  I drove the first hour of the way home, before I relieved of duties for almost hitting Jacob Aber lol and we stopped at Red Robin on the way home to eat.

All in all, it was a really fun weekend, and although I would’ve liked to finish better, wouldn’t we all haha?