Upgrade!

During the Tour of Walla Walla, I put in for my Cat 2 upgrade on the road.

Today, I found out it got approved. I'm very, very excited. I've been working at this for about 2 full years now, and it's finally paid off (for some definition of paid off - I'm probably going to get spanked in the 1/2's for a while).

I'm feeling a surprising sense of accomplishment from upgrading. I know it's not a big deal, and the 1/2's are more than a little step up, but it was something that I really did have to work on (spent 2008 figuring out how to race a bit, 2009 learning how to actually ride real distance without dying), and it turned out pretty successfully for me (ended up with 44 points, 25 required, 40 for a mandatory upgrade).

Not sure when my first 1/2 race will be, but I'm looking forward to it. Road racing goals for the year - check. Hopefully track goes as well.

Walla Walla - Stage 4 (Waitsburg Road Race)

The night before the last stage, I was sitting in 2nd on the GC, 50 seconds behind the leader, and 4 seconds ahead of two riders, 17 seconds in front of another. The course has 2 climbs - one small, 60 second climb and a larger, 2-3 mile climb with a hilltop finish. I didn't think I could take 50 seconds off of the leader, but I knew I definitely could lose 4 seconds from time bonuses or the final climb.

Unfortunately, the night before the race didn't go so well. Couldn't keep any food in, and my back was pretty worked over in general (I've been having problems in races with this). I was thinking I was 50-50 to even finish the stage, let alone keep my place on the GC, especially over a 75 mile road race. I decided to try and start anyway, and downed about 1/2 bottle of Pepto Bismol before the start. Hadn't ever had Pepto before - seemed to work pretty well, surprisingly.

The race started simply enough - with headwinds, and 75 miles, no one was really interested in putting the hammer down, and a group of 3 rolled away. Everything was slow, slow, slow, except the descents, where everyone feels like Superman and wants to go fast.

I had quite a bit of trouble moving up on the descents (lost a lot of places descending), but there was a spot about 3/4 of the way through the lap where the highway opened up, and there was a 3 foot shoulder. I was feeling strong, so I shot up the side to the front of the field and put myself at the front for the first time up the climb. Not sure why the field never got swarmed there, as it was super easy to move up. Perhaps the wind was strong-ish?

First time up the climb was awesome - we had AJ, Andrew Howell, and Adam K (I think - I may have gotten one of those wrong) on the front, and 3 leaders out taking up the time bonuses. It felt pretty awesome to have the team really controlling the race, and to be sitting right in back of a controlling train. Fun. About 20% from the top of the climb, people started coming around, but the goal was just to get over the top in the front, and let the breakaway take the time bonuses away.

I did a better job of keeping places on the descent. Managed to reach out and snatch a Starbucks bottle away from someone thinking it was neutral water in the feed zone. Whoops. Got shuffled back a bit too far again, and moved up in the exact same position. I was able to stay at the front again, and Adam K, Nick Adsero, and AJ kept me in the very front, as Fanatik came to the front to drive up the pace. I kept thinking we were going to get swarmed, and kept myself 4th wheel (right behind Nick Adsero). Nick managed to put me in perfect position going into the climb (3rd wheel), and led out for a bit before pulling off. I had about 70% of the climb left, and I was right where I wanted to be, feeling okay. A few people drove a pretty hard pace until about 500m to go, when the real attacks started. I was able to keep myself at the front, but so did 3rd and 4th on the overall (who started 4s back from me, with 10, 6, and 4 seconds available as time bonuses at the line). Finally, at 150m to go, 3rd on the GC put in a big attack, and 4th went with him. I realized a bit too late that I had messed up, and should've attacked earlier, rather than trying to accelerate with guys who weigh 30 lbs less than me.

I sprinted as best I could, and managed to beat one of them, but not the other (he had a great uphill sprint - super fast finish for him), for third on the stage (someone else had gone early on the climb, and I missed catching him by a 1/2 second. That meant I fell to 3rd on the general classification, but given my last week of sickness (lost 11 lbs in 1 week - ouch), and being sick the night before, I've got to be happy with that. The team did fantastic - they got me right where I needed to be when I need to be there. Best teamwork I saw from any team all weekend.

After the race, I waited around for the results, and had to file my first USCF protest to get them corrected (someone accidentally added a few guys on the GC ahead of me in the results). They got sorted eventually, and I headed home.

I was pretty happy with the weekend as a whole - had a decent time trial and road race, but I'm still feeling apprehensive about P/1/2 crits.

I did, however, earn my mandatory upgrade to 1/2's (I have 44 pts now, 40 pts is a mandatory upgrade), so it's sink or swim time.

Here's a photo of the sprint finish. Looks like I put myself in bad position. I missed catching the guy in orange by about 1/2 second, and didn't quite catch the Hagens Berman rider.
Race file here.

Walla Walla Crit

After finding out I was 2nd on the GC, I was rather nervous about the crit. I know some pretty decent road racers who got pulled last year, and I wanted to be sure I didn't lose any time. The last crit I've done was Kirkland, 2009, and I crashed (not badly, but bad enough to remember). It's too bad, because before I went down, I was cornering really well. Since then, I just haven't been able to get around corners as fast as I should be able to.

The course was actually pretty cool - two very long straights, then a bunch of short-ish turns exposed to the wind. If I had been more confident cornering, I'll bet it could've been a pretty good course for me.

Fortunately, for this crit, I had a bunch of help. Nick Adsero took it upon himself to guide me through the crit, moving me up, watching to be sure I wasn't drifting back behind splits, etc. Basically, the whole thing ended up feeling pretty safe, since I knew that between the two of us we wouldn't get caught on the wrong end of a split. AJ came up in the second half and moved us up a bunch of places on the wide open course, and I was generally able to stay in the top half most of the time with help. Just couldn't shake the nerves in the corners when we were diving in 4 wide. I'm sure Nick got frustrated since moving up in crits (and on corners) is super easy for him, but he decided to help me keep my GC place on the day, which I definitely appreciated.

I ended up feeling very comfortable effort-wise - the crit didn't feel hard at all, at least not with help.


Afterwards, I really focused on eating as much as possible to prepare for the upcoming road race. I also found out that whole teams almost got eliminated by former pro rider Ian McKissick. There was a 20% time cut in the TT (if you're more than 20% slower than 1st, you're done). 6 of 8 Cucina Fresca guys got cut, along with a lot of other good riders... yikes.

I also hung around to watch the Pro/1/2 race, which I guess I'll be doing pretty soon now. I'm definitely way intimidated to being doing crits with them. Really don't know yet how I'll handle that sort of speed. Probably not very well until I get a bit more comfortable.

Race file here (didn't get the whole thing recorded, unfortunately).

TT Update

Guess I did better on the TT than I thought - ended up 2nd in the Cat 3's (40s behind 1st place though, who also won the day before).

Very happy with that result - there are a lot of guys in the 3's that I've always thought were a lot stronger than me, and I'm choosing to take this as confirmation that my training (and just raw time on the bike) has moved me further along than I feared.

On to go after the next demon - crits. Hoping to just stay with the field tonight.

Walla Walla- Time Trial

Next up at Walla-Walla is the time trial. It's about 10 miles, with a hill from about 3.5-5 miles, then a downhill to the finish, with a small kicker at the end. The TT was pretty close to our hotel, so I just rode over easy. Turns out, I had waited to long to leave, so I only had 5 minutes warmup and some front derailleur fiddling before I got underway.

Not a ton to say about time trials - I felt very, very bad on this one, and the first 3 miles were really tough for me. Once I hit the hill, I started to feel a little bit better, and the downhill was a great recovery. Last 3 miles were brutal for me though, and I was really dying. Ended up with a 21:07 (not sure what place yet), which is certainly alright for how badly I felt. The biggest bummer to me was how well I think I could've done on this course if I had felt good. It should have been a pretty good one for me, where I should've made up tons of time on the climb. Ah well. All in all, not a terrible race, but certainly not a good one either.

A good picture.

Race data here: http://tpks.ws/Hme7

Walla Walla - Stage 1

I drove up to Walla-Walla Friday morning with plenty of time for the first race, a 68-mile road race with 5000 feet of climbing. Weather was wonderful - 68 degrees, with a moderate amount of wind. Too nice not to be on a bike. A full field of 100 riders meant there was a lot of moving around in the field. A headwind meant lots of starting and stopping. Together, it made for a nervous race.

In the first 5 miles, I got a flat. There's a 20% time cut on this race, and all I could think of was my whole weekend and 10 hours of driving out the window in the first 20 minutes. The wheel change was pretty fast though, and I was able to get back on after 5-10 minutes of chasing. Then I looked down, and noticed that the guy who changed my wheel didn't get the front skewer closed. Didn't really want to bomb down descents at 45+ MPH w/ a front skewer open, so I had to stop again, fix the skewer, and chase again. Not a great way to start the weekend.

First lap, I was feeling pretty sick to my stomach and couldn't really eat. I knew it would come back to haunt me later, but there wasn't a lot I could do about it. Felt really strong on the climbs, where things broke up a little bit. The downhills were so long that pretty much everything came back together.

Between the first and second laps, a few guys drilled it on the flats, and really started to break up the race a bit. People fell off the pace, and I was a bit too far back, and had to close gaps around people. Then we hit the climbs, and people just exploded. I was way, way too far back, and had literally 75m to make up to the front group on the first climb. That's a lot of distance, and took a lot of effort.

On the second climb, something similar happened - 50-75 m to make up again, which really took it out of me. It was all wasted though, since everything came back together on the descents, even a lot of folks that I flew by at 8-10mph. Bummer.

Unfortunately, the finish was a downhill sprint where I got swarmed 5 miles out. Things were slow, and the field was packed all across the road. I couldn't figure out a way to move up, so I just came in with the field.

Pretty disappointing, but I did finish with the front group, even though I felt terrible from not eating.

Race data here.