Friday was one of the craziest days ever. I got up in the morning and helped Adam sweep the road race course, I helped Chris move, we jump-started Karey’s car, I drove Karey’s car to campus-ish (Obama people were everywhere), walked to my dorm room, packed my stuff up, rode my bike to the car, drove the car closer to campus, got my rollers and bags into the car, got gas, went to Mike’s, unloaded, ate, rode the rollers for half an hour, watched Obama on TV and went to bed. There was a lot of other minor crazy stuff, like driving in Eugene. (Holy crap there are a lot of “you can’t turn here,” weird intersections and one-way streets.) Whatever. It worked out.
Saturday morning came pretty quickly. We (Mike and I) got up, ate, packed the car and scraped the ice off the windshields. The car started, yay! We got there mostly without trouble. Start times were pushed about half an hour, which I hear is pretty normal. At the start line, I was a little late to respond during roll-call and the official said, “That was not a hard question.” Everyone laughed. We rolled out.
The course is a short climb (0.6 mi, 7%) and a slightly less short climb (1.2 mi, 5%) for 680 feet of ascent per lap. The B guys did 4.7 laps, which is about 3400 feet. The first part of the race was pretty quiet, with a few small breaks getting a couple seconds up before coming back. Unlike OBRA races (Cat 4, at least), there were times when the pack singled out. This was mostly when someone was motivated at the front.
The first time up the little climb was hard and it kind of freaked me out. “This is the pace? Oh man.” The first time up the “big” climb was fast. After that it mellowed out a bit. There were the standard silly attacks, but we chased everything down. We went over the set of climbs again. I definitely felt them, but it was that tight feeling, not the “oh my, I really can’t sustain this” thing. Alright. Ivar perhaps has some fitness after all.
The third time over the second/big/whatever climb (I think?), I let a gap open because I was fairly sure I would close it on the descent, what with everyone’s random braking. Ten seconds before the top of the hill, Will’s front wheel was hit. How it happened varies on who you ask. Regardless of mechanism, Will and Luke (and a few other guys) hit the pavement at slow speed. I was pretty happy to have my little gap. I catch on to the group and move along. Tony (who survived the crash because he was also falling off the back) and I made our way to the front and slowed it way down. I had no idea if Luke would get back on. I settled in at an easy pace, going about 17 mph on the flat. Greg, from PSU, asked me if I’d like some coffee. I told him that’d I’d prefer tea, and asked him if he had any sugar also. He didn’t. It was really too bad. We got the the little hill, and I watched my Powertap. I went slow. Seriously slow. Nobody passed me for a long way up. Finally some WWU guys went by and I let my self drift back and caught back on 2/3 back. The descent after the little hill is wicked awesome. 45+ mph was pretty easy to do. I get back into the middle of the now 20ish person field and chill. Ten minutes later, Luke’s back! It was crazy. That was an insane effort on his part.
Now the fun starts. A little attack goes half way through the lap, and I jump in. We have a good sized group. People start yelling to form up and work hard and all of that. I’m totally happy to work. We get the echelon going, but it’s sloppy. The pack catches us in less than a minute, oh well. Now it’s time to sit-in. We’ve got to climb the big hill two more times, finishing on the top of the second. The little climb is in between.
I let a little gap open towards the top because I am really hurting. Tony and I regroup and scream down the descent, but don’t make great time. We get passed by the follow car. I start to freak out. We’re close, and finally we make it back to the pack a couple minutes before the “first” climb. Tony’s toast and gives me a bottle. Andrew was shelled at some point back there, but I’m really not sure where. Luke and I are there, and we’ve got something like six miles to go. Time to go up the hill.
At this point, I’m pretty cooked. I fall off towards the top of the climb. After all of that work, though, I can’t let it go. I hit 52 mph on the descent and get back on. Thanks, guys, for being cautious descenders. Phew.
Everyone chills out. There’re no breaks. I think everyone knew what the final climb was going to be like. Calm before the storm. The 15 of us were just cruisin’ through the countryside at 17 mph. I was so glad. I proposed, because points go 15 deep and we have 15 people, that we start a rock-paper-scissors tournament. By the time we get to the finish, I reasoned, we’ll finish the tournament, and we’ll all roll gently across the line in whatever order we determine. I’m sitting up, smiling and chatty, but not a lot of other people are. Some were amusing. I’m not sure if I have a reputation now. One guy flys off, and it’s back to business. We chased hard and get him at the bottom of the climb and now it was for real. The end. Go, baby.
I’m hanging in on the climb. There’re ten guys in a tight bunch and I’m sitting right behind. My goal is to hold the wheel for as long as I can, then get up for the last 100m and punch it with whatever’s there. That plan lasted about 3/4 of the way up, until I hit my “uh..oh..” feeling and a gap started to open. I reason that pushing to keep the wheel a little longer would be worse in the end. I look back to see a reasonable gap to one guy, with Luke a second or two behind him. I decide I was going to beat this guy for 11th place. I already had the gap, too. Dig, I think. I dig. He passes me. I put my head down and feel like I’m going to cry. The next guy back was way back there. I ease up a hair, cross the line, and slow to a crawl. I stand up to stretch out but sit right back down because my legs wobble under me. Oww.
It turns out I got 11th instead of 12th. Counting is not my strong suite, I guess. It’s an alright result, but I was hoping for better.
Two and half hours after that, it was TTT time. The TTT course was up the finish hill from the opposite side, down it, turn around, up it from the road race side, down it, finish. I was blasted to pieces even before. Andrew missed the start. We finished sixth out of nine, averaging 20.5 mph. Ouch. Andrew, riding the course solo, passed a team. Sweet!
Mike and I packed the car up and drove home. I uploaded my power file, only to be unimpressed. I did set a new CP6 record. Power analysis later. We buy, cook and eat pizza. Kennett and lil’ Kennett came over and we watched the first two chapters of Into the Wild (the movie) and we passed out about 9:45. The alarms were set for 4:45am. Brutal!
UGH. Get up, eat some eggs and oatmeal, get in the car. The car starts again, yay! Drive to LifeCycle. Load up. Drive to Corvallis. It’s raining, it stops, it rains more. Register, sit in the car, get dressed, find stuff in my bag, clear my Powertap. Get on the trainer.
I did not feel good. I’m not sure what I didn’t do right Saturday, but I was not happy on Sunday morning and we had a technical course on wet pavement with plenty of slick road paint. It rained on and off. Weird, unrelated thing: my power on the trainer was way lower than the same effort on the road. That was awfully disconcerting, “What? This is 200 watts? This is not going to be a fun day.”
Start times were pushed half an hour again. I watched bits of the Men’s D and Men’s C crit. Then the Women’s B came and went, and it was time to go. I rode a lap around the course at moderate speed. Everyone was lined up, so I joined the back. Roll-call again. I answered quickly enough to avoid embarrassment, thank goodness. We start.
It was fast. Almost immediately there were WWU guys off the front (I think). My strategy degenerated almost immediately to: don’t-get-dropped. I was at the very back for most of the race. Being at the back sucks. I moved up a couple times, but slipped back. It’ll probably easier and better with more experience. Anyway, I had to cover a lot of surges. There was a lot of braking into the corners and jumping out of them. It starts to get you after 9 corners per lap times for 20ish laps.
Half way through, the guys in front of me let a gap open. It was three UW guys. I sat on, assuming they’d pull it back. They didn’t. There ended up being a pretty sizeable gap, and I less and less wanted to bridge it. The UW guys weren’t happy with me sitting on, either. Kennett and Mike yelled “Bridge!” at me, so I did. I have no idea if I drug the UW guys with me. I didn’t really care at all. I got up there fairly quickly, which made me wonder how I would’ve done if I’d stayed at the front, or even in a break. Oh well. That bridge was so hard. The wet roads were manageable, but I was sliding quite frequently on the wet paint. The rain was on and off for most of the morning. The sixth corner was particularly slippery.
After the bridge, I sat and sat. I moved up. My glasses fogged up, so I took them off and got grit in the face. Five laps to go.
Two laps to go. I can barely see.
One lap to go. Oww.
I can’t hold the pace with 3 corners to go. There’s a gap behind me, so I’m pretty much set in the place after the lead group and before them. I put my head down and push through the end. Will got 11th at the back of the front group. I was a few seconds back with 12th. Tony flatted out, Andrew fell off the back and Luke finished 15th (I think?) in the group behind me.
That was a lot of race report. I suppose it’s numbers time. I’m not exactly the best way to present all of the data, but here we go:
Road Race
Time: 2:32:30 (+5min neutral rollout)
Distance: 51.8 miles
Average Speed: 20.4 mph
Norm. Power: 258 watts (Avg. Power 194 watts)
TSS / IF: 241.7 / 0.975
Avg. HR: 164 bpm
Smoothed power file- grid lines at threshold power, 265 watts and threshold heartrate, 181 bpm, with interesting peak powers (x-axis is distance in miles):
Team Time Trial
Time: 0:32:24
Distance: 11.1 miles
Avg. Speed: 20.5 mph
Norm. Power: 257 watts (Avg. Power 232 watts)
TSS / IF: 50.7 / 0.969
Avg. HR: 176 bpm <— high.
Smoothed power file. Same grid-lines. Check out where the cursor is- that’s where I died. (x-axis is time in minutes from the beginning of the file, not the beginning of the event)
Criterium
Time: 0:45:36
Distance: 17.7
Average Speed: 23.3 mph
Norm. Power: 273 watts (Avg. Power: 250)
TSS / IF: 80.8 / 1.031
Avg. Hr: 181 bpm <— averaged threshold HR!
Laps: about 24
Smoothed power file. This time, power grids at 100%, 120% and 200% of threshold power. HR grid at threshold, speed grid at average speed (23.3 mph). A few highlighted CP values. The white cursor is when I finished the bridge. (x-axis is time in minutes)
Total time in the saddle was about 4 hours on Saturday and 1 hour on Sunday. For the weekend, I did about 3100 kJ (1 kJ = 1 Calorie) of energy expenditure. That’s a lot of food!
I’m looking forward to my rest day tomorrow. Next weekend is WWU/UW, and it’s going to rock.
Check out the photos page!
OSU Crit Flyer (has a map of the course)
University of Oregon Cycling
