Race Report: Team Nature's Path Criterium @ Richmond International Raceway

Subtitle: Criterium Racing Can SUCK IT

Let me start by saying that for the past 2 months, the winter weather here has been terrible. If it wasn't laying down 2 feet of snow, we had 25mph winds. In the immortal words of Lewis Black, "It has been an utter dogshit winter." Going into today's race, I knew I wasn't physiologically prepared. Since December, I've been on my bike maybe 5 times. My hopes were that everybody else was in the same boat that I was in. Here's what happened:

I met my friend Poon (yes, that's his name) early this morning, and headed down to the race track. I was excited to be racing on a bicycle at RIR, where NASCAR races are held. Arriving at the event totally lived up to my expectations. We got to drive through the tunnel, into the infield, and walk right out onto the track. Very cool. When we arrived, the women's class was underway, so we stood and watched them until they were finished. Next up were the juniors, ranging in age from 8yrs. to 18yrs. We watched them take off, then headed back to the truck to get dressed. Obviously, I didn't judge my time well. By the time I got fully dressed, put my bike on the trainer, and inflated the tires, I only had about 5 minutes to warm up. This was a pretty big error. Ideally, I wanted at least 30 minutes. Next, we lined up at the start and got underway. Let me say here, that the wind was atrocious. However, since the track is shaped in an oval, we went about 30mph on one side, and around 15-20mph on the other! This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, though, because it meant that anybody trying to break away would just get caught once we turned into the wind. For the first few laps, I found myself on the inside of the track, which made it nearly impossible to make any significant passes. I passed a handful, but ended up getting passed by the same few once we slowed down in the wind. It was like an accordian: we would spread out, then bunch up, then spread out, then bunch up. About half way through the race, I had worked my way to the outside, and made a pretty good jump to the front, finding myself looking at second place. I knew that once we turned into the wind, I'd be in trouble without anyone to draft in front of me, so I worked my way back into the pack. All in all, things went well throughout most of the race. There was great communication in the group, and I didn't notice any rude or obnoxious riding. With 3 laps to go, I wasn't paying attention, and fell off the back of a fast break away. Somebody (wayyyyyy strong) jumped from the back, all the way to the front, and kept going. The rest of the field followed. "No problem", I thought, "I'll just catch back up when they slow down, when they hit the wind." Well, the problem was, that they NEVER slowed down!! Once I came around the turn, and saw the group pulling away, I made an all-out effort for about 30 seconds, before realizing that I wasn't making any progress in the wind, and the group was steadily disappearing. Oops. A pretty rookie mistake, to get caught not paying attention, and get dropped that quickly.

You can imagine how the remaining couple laps went. Since I had lost the back of the peloton, I had nobody to help me work through the wind and it wasn't long before my lungs couldn't keep up with my legs. At that point, I just told myself that I WOULD NOT QUIT, and that if nothing else, I was going to finish this race on my own. Which is exactly what I did. Dead last. I suppose the silver lining in this story is that by being as far back as I had gotten by the finish, I missed being in the massive crash at the end, which sent 3 riders to the hospital via ambulance. I can finally say that I finished a bike race without crashing! (I crashed in my last 2 XC mountain bike races, and flatted in my first road race last fall.)

Lessons learned:

1. Train, train, train. I was ill-prepared, and I knew it.

2. Nutrition. In the excitement, I had forgotten to eat some simple carbs prior to starting the race. Breakfast wasn't sufficient, either, and was about 4 hrs prior to my start. I had also forgotten to take my dose of Sport Legs, which is a supplement that buffers lactic acid.

3. Allow enough time to warm up. Duh.

4. Pay attention. Although all breaks are not important, when the entire field jumps...I'll go with them, and quickly!