Pizza Man

35+ 1/2/3 race (plus Team High Road women's team - riding with the old men)

It's great when a race plan actually works!

Our 35+ masters field had the welcomed addition of the Team High Road Women.
Over the first 15 miles they were throwing in attacks along with all the other teams, but nothing was getting away. Then my teammate attacked and the strongest rider on our rival team chased and went with him. The 2 of them quickly built a big gap, so I had the priviledge of just sitting in for a free ride. The plan was for me to sit in until the base of the big climb, which is about 9 miles from the finish of the 62 mile race, then attack and try to bridge up to my teammate so we'd have a 2-1 advantage.

So, I sat in and covered attacks and when we got to the base of the climb I punched it. After about 3 minutes I looked back and saw that I had dropped everyone but Mara Abbott. I was really drilling it, and she didn't seem to be breathing that hard. I just kept pressing though in the hopes I could catch the 2 men up the road. I finally caught site of them about 800M from the top and put in a final surge with 200M to go to get on their wheels just as we hit the summit. (Result! )
I opened up a small gap on Mara and with my big teammate drilling the descent, she was unable to get back on our group. My teammate threw in several attacks and managed to soften up the competition so that I was fresh for the final 1K climb to the finish. A win with help from a teammate is twice as satisfying!
Mara soloed the last 6 miles to hold on for 4th.
If I had known she was going to be there I would have brought my August 27 Velo News and asked for her autograph.
Definitely worth the 4 hour drive each way.

waterrockets 

Bad ass. Congrats! It's great when you can pull out the tenderizer with a teammate.

GuitarWizard

Damn dude....congrats....I still remember that video last year of you climbing up a mountain, destroying everyone else. That was awesome.

esammuli

Nice job. I remember passing your field and wondering why the hell there were women mixed in.

The course was fantastic, my result was mediocre. Tried one dig early, nobody came with. When we hit the climb my legs were toast (that'll teach me to come into a hard road race at -25 TSB). I faded hard on the climb then had to claw my way back on the decent. My teammate got 5th, and I came in 10th. Also, props to cngillmore for a solid 7th place.

Nathan English from ZteaM is a monster. He pulled for probably 1/2 the race, covered every break, gave 1st and 2nd to his teammates, and came in 3rd. Damn....

The stats:
Duration: 227
Work: 2056 kJ
TSS: 207.2 (intensity factor 0.861)
Norm Power: 245
VI: 1.2
Distance: 60.789 mi

Min Max Avg
Power: 0 895 204 watts
Heart Rate: 70 180 153 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 78 rpm
Speed: 0 44.1 21.4 mph

cngillmore

Thanks man- You UCLA guys work really well together. Nathan is a beast- He was definitely a cut above the rest of us.

brief report:
Cantura race - Kept jumping off the front but couldn't get anyone to bridge. It seemed that no one wanted to work in a break just bridge up the entire freaking field. This was only my second real road race and I definitely learned A LOT. I burnt up too many matches trying to get something started and then jumped just a little too early in the end. I ended up 11th but was able to lead a UCSB alumni to a 6th place finish so I felt good about that.

Pine flat- Tried to hang in the top 20 for most of the race but stay out of the wind. I was still pretty tired from Cantura and a really heavy training week. I tried to stick with the Z team boys when they really turned up the heat on the rollers before the climb but realized I was going to blow if I kept up their tempo so I settled into my own pace. Held strong to finish second in the chase group - good enough for 7th place.

Felt like I learned a lot, and had a blast. Looking back there is definitely some things that I would change but hindsight is always 20-20 right?

Pizza Man

[QUOTE=cngillmore;6184586]Thanks man- You UCLA guys work really well together. Nathan is a beast- He was definitely a cut above the rest of us.

QUOTE]

Good job guys! You're right about Nate. I rode for Zteam last year and still do some training with those guys. I'm so glad I can race 35+ and not have to worry about them.

After his win yesterday, Nathan tried to upgrade to Cat 3 before today's race, but couldn't get it approved in time. Next time he races will be in the 3's though (for about 3-4 races I expect. )

jrennie

Yeah I have a feeling he will pass right by the 3's long before I.

Nice job PM.

umd

It looked like in the results that he came in second. I just kinda popped when we hit the major climb and worked with a few other riders that had fallen back but ultimately came in behind them on the final climb for 28th (out of 50-something)...

MDcatV

Well done. Many congrats on what sounds to be a well planned and executed strategy that resulted in the top podium step.

dolophonic

Umd i think i saw your bike, plus there was a teammate of yours in 1\2 with the same rig.Sweet ride.
I got 11th in the 1\2's it was a great race..

umd

Yeah, there was a teammate in the 1/2s. He won Cantua Creek, solo off the front with another teammate helping in the field who got second.

umd

Pizza Man, what team are you on, my wife got a bunch of pics from Pine Flat, there may be some of you...

Pizza Man

I'm on the Morgan Stanley team.

Here's a link to some race photos:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8062924...7603936303778/

umd

VosBike

This thread makes the two weeks til I can race seem longer.

Thanks.

umd

cngillmore:


esammuli:


me:


More Pictures

esammuli

UMD, you've got quite a knack at taking pictures of me suffering.

umd

Hehe, that would be my wife... I was suffering behind you.

driuseppe

What do you think of the Ritchey Carbon 38's Pizza man?

mfav7

Is it just me, or does esammuli look quite a bit like Soler in the above pic? Shades, bike....

esammuli

I am part Colombian (not joking).

Pizza Man

I don't know, I'll ask my teammate. That's his picture above.

Racer Ex 

Soler's on Morgan Spinely???!!!

Holy cow you guys DID pull out all the stops!

Snicklefritz

^^^^ Where do you get those? I need one of them for making Chicken Marsala

Red Rider

You've captured a lot of suffering there.

I have my first road race a week from Sunday and now I'm worried that I'm not prepared for it. Damn you anyway. Now I won't sleep and will spend the weekend on the trainer because the weather will be crap.

Boo. But the pictures are good.