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Old 04-25-08, 11:40 AM
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forrest_m
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Now that my first race is behind me, I thought I’d report back on this thread I started back in the fall. In a nutshell, MdcatV had it just right – I was generally able to keep up with the other cat V racers, but lacked the top-end to be competitive (see mini race report below). I had some knee problems over the winter that kept me from running as much as I’d hoped, so my winter base training consisted almost solely of snow sports and traipsing around European cities pushing a baby stroller. I’m not that surprised that 40 days of telemark skiing left my quads in pretty good shape, but I’m pleasantly surprised that it seems to have kept my aerobic systems in pretty good nick as well.

I’ve been back on the bike for just under a month now, doing mostly longer tempo/base work, some fast club-type group rides, some solo long hill repeats and such. Last night’s crit was basically the first high-intensity intervals I’ve done this year. The fact that I can almost hang with the people who have been training all winter makes me optimistic that I will be able to be competitive as my training kicks into higher gear. I think there’s plenty of time still to get some better results this season: I have a couple of “B” races starting in 3-4 weeks and my summer “A” race is still 11 weeks out, with the weekly training crit for, well, training right through August.

Race Report – stop here if you are tired of reading “my first race” posts.
The Seward Park Thursday night crits (Seattle) have a beautiful course, a teardrop-shaped asphalt loop through old-growth forest on the shores of Lake Washington. It’s about .7 miles long, with one short 9% climb, some flats, and a very fast, sweeping downhill corner. About 40 people lined up for the Cat. V race (25 min. + 3 laps).

Since this was my First Race Ever, my goals were pretty simple: try to get used to the environment and not to get dropped. I think I did OK on the first, as my laps actually got faster through the crit and nobody seemed to have any reservations getting on my wheel, but it was actually a bit hard to tell on the second goal. The first lap started off very fast (faster than usual according to several people) and the pack got very stretched out, almost a paceline rather than a pack. I was about 2/3 of the way back, but this was really a long distance from the front, maybe 200 yards or more. I lost a fair amount of ground by being conservative my first run down the sweeping corner.

The second time up the hill, there was an attack at the front and the pack just dissolved. Instead of a break and a pack, there was suddenly a lead “pack” of about ten riders and then groups of 3 and 4 riders with lots of space between. I was too far back to get in with the faster groups bridging up early, so I spent the next 10 laps trying to work my way up from group to group, like a soldier advancing under fire from cover to cover. I could usually make up a lot of ground on the hill, but unless there was a wheel to get on just at the right place at the top, I would end up alone the rest of the lap, get tired and lose most of the ground I’d gained. Finished somewhere in the middle about half a lap behind the lead group.

In retrospect, the smart thing to do would probably have been to assemble a chase group, even if it meant I had to slow down a bit on the hill so that I’d have company at the top. It would have been a lot more efficient to get a rhythm & trade pulls, but to be honest, I didn’t really have the head space to think that much. I’m pretty happy just to have finished without running into anybody and without getting lapped.
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