Ken Woods Race Report

Cat 5
2nd out of 47
Official time: 1:59:50
http://www.endurancepromotions.com/blog_wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/kwmrr-results-men-cat-5.pdf
Normalized power: 274
Peak watts (1084 in first 10 minutes working my way through the field to the front), final sprint was only 848
Power records: New 6-7 minute PR (at the end of the race)

Pre-race: Got there early with Joe for his 9am race. Took in the scene, watched other racers, tried to pick up course notes on people who pulled off from their race. Managed to pull off a successful bottle hand-up for Joe after his 2nd lap.

Race goals: stay rubber side down, get some experience, have fun. If I got into a group up front, try to hang as long as I could. Before I got to the race I thought I could be competitive in the 5's given my numbers right now but I got there and realized that I needed to temper those expectations. With no experience in a road race, seeing a lot of fit and capable cyclists in the big group of 5's, and knowing that hill at the end was probably going to split any group and spit me off the back, I really didn't expect to be in contention. One could hope, but didn't expect it.

First lap:
Here's a nice summary from Josh Weigel, I was standing next to him when I started so pretty much the same for me except for the clipping in:

"Happened to be we were all ready staged and the race started while JG and I were talking about something, our conversation quickly switched to "we are starting now?" and we were off. OK, not knowing the race is going to start is one thing but having the race start and not being able to get clipped in is another. I started dead last and had to race to catch up with the field. Thank God no one decided to push the pace from the get go so I had time to catch back up. JG and I rode together for about 1/4 mile then I decided I needed to get closer to the front so I worked my way up. About 2 miles into the race I was 3/4 of the way through the pack and feeling really good. Mile 5 I joined the leaders and started taking my turns pushing the pace. The fun thing about this was we were going relatively slow so you could pull for a bit then settle back in the the pack and more or less just glide along. We turned the second corner and headed straight into the wind and really slowed down since no one wanted to be in front. The group was getting restless, you could just feel the anxiety building, people started to get pushed over the center line and the judge or referee (who ever the guy with the whistle on the motorcycle is) started yelling and making people go to the back of the pack. We were only going like 16 mphs for about 1.5 miles when someone said hell with this, literally yelled "to hell with this" and took off. The group sped up to about 19-20mphs and we quickly reeled him back in. This went on until the final turn of the first lap when we had to climb out of the valley. I was doing good until this point but the hill seemed to much for me. I turned the corner on Matt Maurer's wheel and started up the hill. 1/2 way up Matt and I were riding next to each other he looked at me and said "our bodies are not made for this" at the same time we were coming to a slower biker and he went around him on the right and I ended up behind the slower rider. The slower rider tried to get on Matt's wheel to draft up the hill but could not hold the pace and we both dropped back since I was behind him. "

Not much to add to that. First mass start race for me so I was just trying to get a feel for it all in the neutral start. I think I let too many people get in front of me, though. When we hit the turn and the pacing car pulled off it was on and I figured I needed to get my ass to the front pretty quick. I jumped from wheel to wheel, hopped in behind others moving up, and soon I was up where I wanted to be. Expended a bit of energy to get there but OK. I looked over at one point and saw Josh had made his way up to the front as well, so that was good to see. On the hill at the end of lap 1, I got towards the front of the group and tried to set a hard but manageable effort on the hill. People were starting to pass and pull away from me and I realized I needed to pick it up a bit to have a chance to stay with what looked to be the group, and that's probably when I lost Josh. I saw Coach Joe near the start finish line but I hadn't gone through much for fluids so didn't need the bottle hand-up from him. I doubt I would have been able to grab at as at that point I was barely registering anything happening beyond the 5 feet in front of my wheel.

2nd lap
I think I went across the start line in around 10th? There were certainly people in front but I was with a small group so I thought we'd be able to catch people, and if not I still had a group with to share the work on the 2nd lap. After a few minutes of recovery from the hill my legs felt pretty good so I was able to do some pulling and work my way up to the riders that were out in front. I wasn't sure what kind of group was going to form so I wanted to be in the front if/when it formed. I burned a little energy here but I felt like it was the right move. I was able to bridge up what looked to be the last of the people out front, and then was content to sit on the wheel and let the group catch up. By the turn heading west a group of 10 had formed. This was the windiest part of the course. We knew there was still a rider (riders?) up front. One of the riders (Rob Hillman) got us into a double paceline so we could push the effort a bit and try to bring the breakaway back. We got through a few rotations but I think people were pretty blown from trying to get into the group on the previous stretch. I was feeling OK at this point, felt like I could do my share of pulling and if anything I was leaving people off my wheel when I was pulling. We made the turn heading north and the race official let us know we were 45 seconds back. Again couldn't get any real coordinated effort to chase. We picked up a few stragglers from the other races. At this point there didn't seem to be much interest in the group to chase the lone breakaway, so I sat in the back of the group, let my legs recover a bit, and planned to mark any moves or else get ready to try to hang with the group up the final hill. I was curious if a move would be made on the shorter hill on this stretch but there really wasn't any attempts to get away, just a few surges, so it became clear we were going to hit the final hill as a group.

I knew we had short downhill before the turn into the final hill, so I got up to the front of the group and I think was in 2nd wheel behind Rob Hillman entering the hill. Rob attacked the hill from the start and I was able to stay on his wheel, though was running in the red to do so. As we made our way up the climb I really had to bury myself to stay on his wheel, but I looked back and we had dropped the rest of the group so I decided to stay on Rob until I blew up or hit the finish line, whichever came first. A gap started to open a couple of times but I dug in and closed it. The pace slowed a little when the hill started to flatten out, but memory starts to gets fuzzy a bit here due to lack of O2 to the brain and I'm going off of PT data since it all hurt at this point. We hit the little downhill before the finish I was able to recover a little and get ready for the last sprint. Another rider had almost caught up with us so it was going to be 3 people for the final sprint. At some point I touched wheels with Rob but didn't crash. Rob moved around the course a little to try to shake me but at that point about all I could physically see was his wheel and I was able to stay on him. He started the sprint pretty early and I know said some mean things under my breath since I knew this was really going to hurt but I matched his effort than moved around him and gave it all I had (which at that point wasn't a whole lot - 848 watts) until I looked back and could see I would take the sprint and proceeded to limp across the line collapsed over my bars. At least I think that's how it went. I really wasn't thinking too clearly at that point. Looking back at my data I was within 3 watts of my 5 minute power PR for the last 5 minutes of the race, so I left it all out there on the course.

I really expected to get dropped on the last hill since I had to kill it first lap to try to hang with the leaders and still dropped back. So I was very, very happy with the result.

notes:
-Put new PR3's and latex tubes in the night before. Was a little nervous racing on freshly installed tires/tubes with no miles on them, but figured I could ride around a bit and had plenty of time to swap stuff out if needed. The tires/tubes worked great, so no worries

-Peace Coffee kits not in yet so I picked up last year's skinsuit (will need for TT's anyway) and wore that for the race. Fit great, but could have used some pockets. Only had maybe 200 calories on me during the race and didn't go through all of that, so was definitely undercaloried and could feel it after the race. Lesson learned.

-It was chilly but dressed right. Wore normal longsleeve shirt and arm warmers and warm gloves. Also went with tights (good call) and cycling cap under helmet (also good call). Had to flip the bill up on the cycling cap about half way through the race since my neck was getting sore trying to see from under it. Probably looked stupid but at that point I really didn't care. Sore neck gone. Win. Temp was good, got warm and unzipped jersey going up the big hill on both laps, otherwise was good. When I got done, though, I was shivering uncontrollably.

-In retrospect I think maybe could have tried to bridge up to the winner (Joris Custers) on the southbound stretch since I was reeling in people, but as a sprinter I was thinking more about getting a group formed to stay out of the wind than getting in a small breakaway and going off the front. Obviously Joris was strong enough to stay away, though I'm pretty sure a more coordinated effort in our group could have reeled him in as the margin of victory was down to 16 seconds and we really weren't working hard in the group to bring him back. But even now I don't think that would have been the right move. Certainly no guarantee I would have won and I'm probably not a guy who's going to love being in 1 or 2 man breaks like that (or be successful at it). I'd rather sprint. :)

-no major cramping, calves got a little tight on the northbound stretch on lap 2 and I remember my hip flexors getting a little tight at times, but no worries. Legs started to feel the accelerations by the middle of lap 2, though. But I guess everyone's were at that point.