Superior-Morgul Race Weekend – Road Race

Sunday morning was an early start.  I was up and moving at 4:30 am to drop my wife at the start of the Colfax Marathon.  Her big goal happened to be the same weekend as mine; I would recommend avoiding this situation to anyone thinking they can pull it off.  Once she was off, I drove over to Superior for the road race.  Of course I was a little early but that gave me time to stretch the legs and get everything set up.

My fear during this race is always the climbing.  I’m not a small guy and climbing has never been something I felt like I exceled at.  My plan was to try and start the climbs at or near the front the drift back if needed so that I didn’t lose the group at the top.  The race started with a neutral start as we rolled out to the base of the wall for our first climb to the finish where we would begin our 3 lap race.  Once we were out on McCaslin the motorcycle judge blew his whistle and gunned the motorcycle like we were about to take off or something.  I saw a few racers twitch like there were ready to sprint and I quickly yelled out “easy guy’s, that doesn’t mean go.”  Everyone had a laugh and we headed up the hill.

I felt like the race pace was pretty high but as long as I could survive the climbs the rest of the course was not overly difficult.  It wasn’t long before I was having a difficult time with my pre-race plan.  The group would swell-up on Marshal road before the climbs and I couldn’t move forward.  I was starting the climbs at the back of the pack.  At that point I knew I didn’t have much room for error and I would absolutely have to give everything to stay with the group as I couldn’t drift back.  I would have to suffer, and suffer I did!  Every time I went up the wall and hump 2 (the hills I did in the TT) I was faster than the personal records I set during the TT (except for the last time up the wall).  The road race went over the same ground as the time trial and twice we did it faster than my TT, I know a group is faster than a lone rider but we were over a minute faster!

On our second to last time up the wall through the finish line the back of the group was struggling, including me.  As we hit the top gaps were forming and I had two teammates back with me.  I knew if we didn’t catch that group quickly we’d never see them again.  I turned myself cross-eyed to close the gap and managed to close the gap.  Unfortunately I was right near the bottom of the last hump climb and I couldn’t keep the pace going up the hill.  So I set my own pace and hoped for the best, one of my teammates did manage to bridge and stay with the lead group so I guess the effort was worth it.  I never caught them again but a small chase formed to help reach the finish.  I can’t say that I helped the chase group much other than to try and keep myself in a good position.

In the end we finished a couple of minutes down on the folks in the lead group.  The last climb up the wall to the finish was everything I had.  After a full weekend of racing I was done.  I ended up 33^rd, finishing in 1:56.  That’s a couple of minutes faster than when I did the race a few years ago and that year the winning time was 1:59.  It was a hard race and in the end I learned I can climb better than I think I can.

I'm still pulling my final thoughts together on this race weekend as well as some future plans so look for that post in the coming days.

Superior-Morgul Race Weekend – Criterium

Our criterium race was early in the morning on Saturday, sadly as I awoke I could hear to gentle pitter patter of rain on the window.  It tapered off and I quietly hoped we were done with the wet stuff as the course would likely be dry if it stopped now.  I got geared up and headed over to the race.  When I got there the road was dry and the temperature was cool.  Perfect, I got in a few practice laps between the races before heading back to the car to get in my final warm-up on a stationary trainer.  As I was riding the trainer it started to sprinkle again, then it picked up into a full on rain.  So sad, I’ve never done a road race in the rain much less a fast paced criterium with a couple of high speed corners.  For the most part the rain stopped before the race but the streets had rivers running on them and at the bottom of the hill with a fast left hand corner, there were lakes.

I lined up on the front and figured it would be safer to be on the front at least the first couple of laps to make sure everyone made it around the wet corners.  After someone nearly crashed into me during a practice lap taking a corner stupidly, I knew things might get interesting.  I tried to be patent on the front and not go too hard but after a few laps the pace went up and I ducked back in the group for a nice little road spray shower from the other bikes.  Things were progressing nicely until there was a prime announced for additional omnium points and the group took off like they were fired from a gun.  I was left struggling to hang onto the tail end of a splintering group and finally got gapped off.  The legs just didn’t have a response to that acceleration.

I begin looking for other riders to work with and came across the current omnium race leader in my category, perfect, a free ride.  He had beaten me in the TT by almost two minutes so I knew he’d be strong.  Fortunately he’s technical skills in the corners were not very good and I could easily pass and on the fast turns, gapping him.  He would bridge up and I would hold on for dear life.  We were stuck in this mode for far too many laps.

As the laps ticked down our group had swelled to about 5 and we still had not been lapped.  We had just been given the 2 to go sign and were getting ready for our bell lap when the motorcycle marshal came buy in the final 100M to the finish line.  We kept going but were caught about 10 feet from the finish line by the sprinting finishers.  Suddenly our race was over, personally I wanted to finish on the lead lap but after all that chasing in the cold and wet, I was ready to be done.

Unfortunately the officials thought I was with the lead group and placed me in 3^rd for the race.  Now, I’d really like to finish on the podium in a road race someday but this was not the day.  Once I caught the error I let the officials know and they set out to figure out what had happened.  Unfortunately this didn’t happen until later in the day because immediately after the race I had to go warm-up, I was wet and cold and not hanging around to find out the placing of a lapped rider.  Anyway, they ended up giving me 15^th for the crit.  I was pretty happy to have safely negotiated and finished my first wet criterium.  Now the legs would really have to recover before the long hard road race.

Superior-Morgul Race Weekend – Time Trial

This past weekend was the pinnacle of my planned spring road race campaign, the Superior-Morgul Omnium.  Three days of road racing near my house on roads I am very familiar with.  Friday evening was a roughly 6.5 mile time trial (TT – race against the clock), Saturday was a 45 minute criterium and Sunday was a 49 mile road race over the famed Morgul-Bismark loop.  If you have a look at the Strava widget on the right side of the blog you can see the maps and all the details on each of these races.

Since these races were a goal of mine, I had specifically targeted my training in an effort to be at my best.  Leading up to these races I tapered off my training to rest up for the races ensuring I would survive the weekend and be as fast as possible.  For me, resting is always harder than just riding, it gives you time to think about all the things you could have done differently and doubt yourself.  I tried to push that all out of my mind because right before the race it’s too late; doing anything different is only going to cause more harm than good.  The week before the races I backed off the number of intervals and took a few days off the bike the week before the race.  I got in some short openers on Wednesday and Thursday to make sure the body was ready for the TT Friday evening.

I arrived at the Time Trial race early to get my number and check out how the TT was being run and ensure I got in a good warm up.  I only do a TT about once a year so I wanted to refresh my memory on these things.  I don’t have a time trial bike, or deep dish carbon aero wheels, or a pointy helmet, or clip on aero bars; I was going to do the time trial retro, meaning no extra aerodynamic enhancements other than what you find on a standard everyday road bike.  I knew it would be a disadvantage and I’d lose time but my legs were going to have to do the work.

My concern for the race was pacing, there are too pretty big hills (the wall and so called hump 2) connected by a flat section and I knew if I went too hard on the hills I’d lose even more time on the flats as I fought to recover.  So I decided to using my heavier, 32 spoke Powertap wheel to help gauge my effort.  My plan was to be a little under my threshold power or coasting on the descents, at or near threshold on the flats and above on the steep part of the climbs.

I got in a good warmup and went down to the start house.  We got to start out of the official US Pro Challenge Time Trial start house, which was kind of cool.  I stuck to the plan during the race and the legs felt pretty good, I set a new personal record going up the Wall in 5:49 as well as the second hump in 3:17.  In the end I finished the TT in 18:42, finishing in 18^th of 28.  At first I was a little disappointed but after looking through the results most people were within +/- 20 seconds and I set two personal records up those hills, what more could I ask for?  I set out to recover and get ready for the Criterium that was to be held about 12 hours after my TT.  During cyclocross season my second race of the weekend was typically my best; hopefully this weekend would be same.

Deer Trail Road Race - 2012

I’ve done this race a couple of times over the past couple of years.  Each year it’s typically my first road race of the season.  I’ve had good results and not so good results but I am almost always in the top 20.  This year was obviously not my first road race and I was hopeful I could influence how the race turned out.  My team had a number of good riders signed up for the race and with that strength I felt like we would be able to accomplish something.  Nigel had won the race last year and I felt like he could likely out sprint most of the field, Michael is a great climber and Matt and myself I would describe as all-rounders.

Driving into Deer Trail was like returning to the scene of a nightmare I had had a few weeks prior.  Nothing has changed in that town.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice little town but all I do is drive out there to suffer.  Our early morning start had a cool morning breeze and temperature in the upper 40’s to low 50’s.  There was a last minute change to the course that morning because of a bridge issue which confused things but ultimately the race is just two straight roads with rolling hills.  The only technical obstacles are multiple 180 degree turn arounds, which can play havoc on a larger group.  The field size was on the small size, only about 40 guys.

Heading out of town for the start of the race things were pretty mellow.  The motorcycle judges did a fantastic job keeping a couple of loose dogs out of the group.  I have to admit they expertly put their motorcycles between us and the dogs keeping things safe.  I know they don’t hear this enough but thanks, I’m glad you were there!  Not too long after the dogs were behind us, a couple of riders were starting to get the itch and wanted to jump out.  We were going into the wind and they didn’t get anywhere but they were determined and I was happy to sit on their wheel.  If they were strong enough to go I’d go with them so the rest of my team could sit on.  But nothing really happened.  This went on as we hit the first turn around and started heading back.  As we turned left onto the main out and back route the wind became a cross wind.

I drifted back to find a good draft but soon found myself behind a few strong riders that were making their way forward.  So I stayed with them.  When they got to the front, the real pressure on the field started and by the time we reached the second 180, four of them had a clear gap and the riders behind were totally unorganized and shattered.  The group of four was made up of my teammate Matt and 3 other riders, all from different teams.  I would have to argue that Matt was our strongest rider, so when I saw him go with 3 others, I wanted to give him the chance.

Nigel, Michael and I were in the shattered remains in the group and fortunately we were close enough we could all start working together to ensure we all made it into the first case group.  We were successful and all of us knew we didn’t want this group to pull Matt back.  So we started blocking at the front.  I tried to keep it in good taste, I wasn’t just getting in the way.  People could pull through but when they did Nigel and I would sit on their wheel until they tired and made it more difficult for other riders to come around.  If no one came around, I’d set a false tempo.  Michael tried to make a bridging move up to Matt but ended up getting caught in no man’s land and never made it.

Towards the end of the race my legs were getting pretty tired from chasing everything down.  Someone made a hard effort up one of the last steep hills and shot me right out the back.  Nigel and Michael stayed in the group.  I chased with a few other dropped racers but my influence on the race was over.

In the end, Matt was dropped from the group but we had given him enough time to hold onto 4^th.  Nigel, our sprinter for the day, took the group for 5^th.  Michael was 15^th and I out sprinted my chase companion for 19^th.  In the end I felt pretty good about the race, the team had dictated how the race would unfold.  We showed our team strength and got two guys in the top 5 and four of us in the top 20.  This race is proof that riding with teammates can be incredibly beneficial even in lower category races.