LowCel 

This is my second cat 5 road race, my first was the day before. I had a great finish in Saturday's race but I was definately feeling it on Sunday. I was just hoping to be able to stick with the pack. One of the highlights was getting to meet PolishPostal and hanging out with him for a while. I had met him about a year ago but just talked to him for a minute or two. He is an extremely nice guy and a very good rider as well.

This race is a 43 mile out and back on a rolling course. However, everyone had to park 6 miles from the start which actually worked out to be a pretty good warm up. The warm up was needed since it was about 28 - 30 degrees out. It was slightly windy with a little tail wind on the way to the turn around and a head wind the second half. After the race we had to 6 miles back to the car which was mostly uphill.

For this race they had the cat 5's and the vets together. The race started out at a pretty good pace, nothing crazy but not real slow either. There were a couple of teams in the pack, one had about six riders, the other had five riders I believe. This made a breakaway pretty much impossible. Everything stayed pretty calm during the race with the exception of a couple of squirly riders. Nothing too bad they just made a few unnecessary sudden moves. No harm done though, just kept everyone on their toes.

Things kept rolling on, by the turn around we had probably dropped about five riders, not too bad. On the way back things stayed calm until about six miles to go. That's when the chess game started. With about four miles there was a decent climb that spread the field out a bit. However, at the top people started setting up again which would have let some of the struggling riders get back on and rest. At that point I went out front and took the lead for a couple of minutes. I just wanted to make the peleton a little smaller. It seemed to work. By the time I was able to get someone else to pull I realized there were only nine of us left, four cat 5's and five vets. Getting rid of the pull wasn't easy, at that point nobody wanted to do the work since there was just a couple of miles left.

Anyway, things calmed down for a minute or two then we got about 1/2 mile from the finish. At that point PolishPostal somehow thought the finish line was much closer than it was. Oops. Well I grabbed his wheel until he blew up. That left about 1/4 mile to go. I tried to go but quickly found out that I just didn't have the legs. With about 100 feet to go the other two cat 5's went around me and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I lost the chess match. With about 50 feet left I looked back and saw PolishPostal a good ways back. I just sat up and rode in about 5 seconds back from the winners. I'll be satisfied with third this time and chalk it up as a learning experience.

Anyway, for the weekend I ended up with a win and a third. In my mind that's a pretty decent first couple of races.

Grasschopper

Well I would say a first and a third is a pretty good start. Just wondering...it sounds like there were times in both races when it was pretty slow and you just sat in...why not just go and solo the thing? I know the pack goes faster and all but we are talking Cat5 and early season...and it sounds like you have been doing your training and may belong at a higher level (MTB racing) so why not just leave the pack in the dust?

I also noted that your HR spent a LOT of time in zones 1 and 2 from your other post...seems like a little more work and you could have just left both fields...maybe I am totally worng though.

LowCel 

Just cat 5's is what I thought as well, I was wrong. There are a lot of what I consider to be fast riders in cat 5. I had no idea until I started.

As for "just soloing the thing" that wasn't an option. You would have had to have been there I guess. Everytime someone tried something one of the two teams would start a chase and the whole group would go after them. Someone would have had to be very strong in order to get away. PolishPostal attempted going off of the front once. They let him go about five seconds before I heard someone send two riders to the front to chase him down.

The idea of just going solo sounded much better before I did either race. I now have a much higher respect for road racers.

LowCel 

Oh yeah, here is the power data for this race. Just subract 43 miles from the distance. I had to edit the information in excel in order to seperate day 1 and day 2 since I don't have a laptop to download the information to while I am out on the road yet.

Grasschopper

Cool data...now that I look at the HR data colser is that really your zones? Your max is 220 BPM?

LowCel 

220 just covers everything. I'm not really concerned about what my max heart rate is. I worry more about my threshold heart rate.

Grasschopper

Right, what I am saying is that if you have that set properly it tells you how hard you are working over time...given the not set HR level it seems to show you not working hard but you clearly were.

LowCel 

Oh, those are my heart rate zones. The 220 part just isn't accurate. My zones are based on my tested threshold level.

Doctor Who

I won the 5 race at Mentor last year. I'll second the fact about the finish line seeming much closer than it actually is. I remember getting frustrated with the general pokiness of our gruppetto, and making a solo break because I thought the finish line was within a K or so of where I broke away. Of course, it was more like two miles, but I still crossed the finish line with a 20 second lead over the others.

But I don't want to take anything away from your race. I should've been there, but my legs were fried from Saturday and I had stuff to take care of anyway. Good job.

Are you going to hit up the OVR race series? Check www.ohiovalleyracing.org

LowCel 

I think I may do a couple of those races. I'm looking at the Morrow and the Lynchburg race.

My mountain bike season starts on April 23rd. After that I will be concentrating primarily on those for the next few months.

Did the mentor race count towards an upgrade to a cat 4 for you?

PolishPostal

I'm with Lowcel. I tried to go with about every break and the teams were chasing them all. Even when both teams were represented in the break. I'm not an expert on team tactics but that one doesn't make much sense to me. I'm curious how our race would have played out if the Master's wouldn't have been in our group.

I'll be doing the OVR series races in March.

Doctor Who

I did put it on my racing resume, but since I race CX in the fall, I had well over 15 races under my belt before I decided to upgrade. I wasn't really sandbagging - I was waiting until the cross season (and the year) was over before upgrading.

As for those races - Morrow was a great race, albeit with too much traffic. If last years course is the same as this years, it had an uphill finish that really put the hurt on for those trying to vie for a good place. Fun stuff. Lynchburg was flat as a pancake, and since I do better in the hills than the flats, I suffered more there, and eventually flatted out. Whatever, they're still some great courses.

gcasillo

Anyone else doing some of the Kentucky Spring Training Series races? I will be doing my first race at the Lexington Spring Circuit Race on April 1. Just hoping to finish the race that day. If anyone can speak for any of the other races in the series, I'd be curious to hear about them.

LowCel 

I thought the races had to be road races to qualify, I didn't know cx counted as well. If only I could figure out some way to count mountain bike races.

race-me22

That is fantastic a win and a third is amazing for your first race. Keep it up and train more and just hope you can do that well later in the season as well.

Doctor Who

Any mass-start race counts towards upgrading to Cat. 4. It doesn't matter if it's a backyard crit or a long-haul brutality excursion like Schabobele, you just have to have 10.