UCSC Slugapalooza P123 - 4th/14(?)

Really tough course that means only masochistic climbers will enter: 20x(~5 minute climb, ~2:30 descent). I guess that's one way to guarantee I get in the VO2 repeats I'm usually loathe to do. 5 teammates in the field which made for the most i've ever had, in a race where teammates hardly matter. I was demoralized at reg though to see our strongest climber was there, which meant I already could tell he would just go off and I wouldn't be able to chase.

First lap was 'easy' (threshold up the climb), then some guy with non-team kit launched 'the attack' and our climber followed. I tried to bridge so we'd have 2:1, but didn't want to pull anyone else to my teammate so I wasn't able to make the juncture and just sat and blocked a bit for half a lap or so (which is potentially a little unfair, because as a Cat 3 I was wearing different color kit to my teammate up the road and it wasn't clear to everyone that I wasn't going to chase my teammate). Not that it really mattered, 'some guy' turned out to be a CX pro and my teammate up the road is crazy talented (competed in MTB junior WCs a while back) so it was clear they were gone. I *think* its possible if I had continued chasing I might have been able to grab a wheel, but I likely would have been shelled pretty soon after so its not like it made that big a difference. I set 1:30->5:00 best powers on that 2nd time up the climb when the attack occurred, but I think I still had more to give.

Going into the 3rd time up the climb the perhaps strongest pure climber in the race made a move and I jumped on his wheel. This guy is an insane climber, and given a 20-40minute 10%+ climb he'd shell anyone and everyone including the pro, but the climb in the race is more stair-steppy and not that steep so I was able to barely hold on. We spent 6-8 laps in front of the field and I was pretty sure we were fine to hold down 3rd and 4th place comfortably, but the field was actually closing and one guy bridged and then a lap or two later the remains of the field caught us. In retrospect, this was my fault - we weren't working like a breakaway. The climber would tear my legs off up the climb in an irregular spurty effort and then I'd lick my wounds on the descent, but I should have explained that we needed to ride threshold (or just a bit over) evenly up the climb while taking turns and then work the descent. As it was, I got tired out trying to follow his wheel up the climbs but our lap times weren't that quick overall because it was more like an interval workout than a measured effort.

It was pretty demoralizing to be back in the field (now reduced by about 4-5 people who were OTB) and *still* have half the race to go. When we got caught the pace slowed to a complete crawl for a couple laps, but even then I was pretty tired and wanted to drop out pretty much every time up the climb. I knew my best chances for a place were to make/follow an attack and get solo, but I just wanted to make it to the finish and was willing to chance the sprint I would probably inevitably lose just because I was so tired. With 4 laps to go, one of the pack launched an attack and the guy who had bridged to my break followed him, but I was tired and was hoping someone else would follow the move (there was still 4 laps left! why couldnt they have waited a lap or two!?). No one did, and by the time I realized that they already had too much of a gap for me to attempt to bridge. However, the guy who had initiated the attack blew himself up after a lap, meaning all was not lost (on the 'California podium' at least).

I put in a tiny acceleration with 3 laps to go, not as a real attack but mainly to see who was alive. (@Ygduf's patented 'fake attack' approach). Ygduf's favorite former teammate covered me, chastising that I needed to practice how to 'accelerate for longer'. He put in an attack going into 2 laps to go and I covered and then attacked past him, this time accelerating for real and going free, TTing the final two laps to finish 4th. I can only assume he thought my attack would be short lived like the 'previous' one. That, or the fact that almost any attack would work at that point as presumably everyone felt as horrible as I did.

Not a horrible placing in a tough race featuring P12s (including 30 min warmup, I got 290 TSS in 3 hrs...). I know I should have gone with the move that the 3rd place rider followed, but I'm not sure I would have beat him anyway. I'm interested to try the 'fake attack' approach Ygduf has been preaching more now that I've seen it in action, and I'm pretty happy I didn't succumb to the ever present urge to drop out that was pretty much constant throughout the race (I think the main reason I didn't is because I didn't want to lose face in front of my teammates, which is actually one of my main reasons for deciding to joining a team to begin with).