Cirt, Crit, Crit

The Louisiana/Mississippi (aka LAMBRA) district criterium championships was Saturday and so I was up at 4:30 a.m., just as The Daughter and her friend were getting home from a night in the French Quarter, to load up the Volvo, pick up Charlie and head up to Denham Springs. Around 10 the night before I had picked up the club's big tent thing so we'd have some shade, 'cause I knew we'd need it.

We arrived in time to see Courtney cleanly dispatch the other women to win her race solo, after which our 45 minute Masters 35+ race got underway before 8 a.m. There was a fair amount of action from the start, with Matt of NBO going from the gun. Realdo launched the next big attack, but the pack reacted pretty quickly and shortly after he was caught Eddie C. launched. Eddie is fully capable of a long solo, so I went into the red to catch, as did Ed C. Next thing I knew, we had a gap, so we went with it. Although the pack allowed us a small gap, we spent a number of laps just hovering at around 15-20 seconds, even though we were working well together. My teammates were doing a good job of chasing down the attacks, though, so eventually we started to pull away. The one thing I didn't realize was that at some point Realdo had gotten away and was trying to bridge up to us. I remember thinking that he might do that. There was one point on the course where we made two turns in rapid succession, so I could look over to my right and see where the pack was. Well, I was able to see the pack, but apparently not Realdo. Damn! I really need a coach and a radio, because I am incredibly bad at keeping track of what's going on behind me in a race. Anyway, I'm sure I could have slowed the break down enough for Realdo to catch and so now I feel bad that I didn't realize he was there. If we could have picked him up, I'll bet he would have won. Anyway, the three of us, being the courteous masters riders that we are, kept working together until the final lap. About half-way through the final lap I found myself on the front and eased up a bit hoping someone would come through. Everyone hesitated, though, and the speed suddenly dropped a lot. Eddie siezed the opportunity and attacked and by the time Ed and I stopped looking at each other he had a huge gap. I finally took off in pursuit, but although I was going 30 mph coming into the last turn, I wasn't making up much ground. I thought that surely he would fade in the finish stretch, but he put on another burst of speed and finished bike lengths ahead. I didn't hear Ed behind me as I approached the finish line and started to ease up just as I caught him coming by out of the corner of my eye. I threw the bike at the last second and somehow managed to get my wheel across the line ahead of his, but it took the video to know for sure. Realdo finished between us and the pack, and Jaro won the pack sprint, so if I had just done my job a little better, it would have been pretty good.

After lounging around in the shade for a few hours, during which Jaro won the Cat. 3 race, it was finially time for the 40-minute Masters 45+ race. This was a fairly small field as usual and when David Hyde attacked shortly after the start, 4-man break quickly formed. A few laps later as we were coming through the sharp, off-camber downhill turn I was sitting behind David and heard a commotion behind me. Apparently the rider behind me had a tire blow out, basically taking himself and the rider behind him out. I think they both got going again, but neither ever reconnected with us. I was taking this race as more of a hard training ride, and David must have had the same idea because even though we were in no real danger of being caught, we kept up a good fast pace throughout. In the end David led us through the last couple of turns, jumping early and accelerating down the long finish straight. I came around at the last moment. By now it was hot and sunny and I was dripping sweat like everyone else.

The 75-minute Cat. 1,2,3 race was scheduled to start 15 minutes later, but I wasn't planning on doing two back-to-back criteriums on a day like this and was on the side of the road near the start talking to Jay and Jaro when I got called out by Shane, the official. Then Will, the promoter (who was also racing the Cat. 1,2,3 race) came over and said "the third race is free!" So I figured, what the hell, and filled up a single water bottle, rolled to the line and off we went. I spent about five laps dealing with a stich in my side, but since there were only about 16 people in the race things weren't too brutal. Once I got warmed up again, I was able to move nearer to the front and take over from Realdo a couple of times when I saw him on the front, but of course there was no way I was going to be of any real help to anyone at this point. I was figuring I'd be lucky to hang in for half of the race. In fact, it was shortly after the half-way point when a strong break went off the front and when I had to dig deep to stay with the chase I started to feel the legs starting to cramp up. Eventually I had to let them go, but with so few riders in the race I knew they wouldn't be pulling anyone, so I rode easy for a few laps. That helped a lot, and when I saw the group coming up behind me to lap me I got rolling again and latched onto the back where I would stay for the duration. By this time the pace had settled down a lot and a few people had dropped out, so when I rolled across the line after the sprint I actually ended up in 8th place. It took me a good half hour after that to get my body temperature back down to near normal after something like two and a half hours of criteriums in one day and my quads were definitely toast, but hey, at least I got my miles in!

Some good pics: http://sescheib.smugmug.com/gallery/1694887/3/83336823

The Daughter headed out for Iowa City this morning, so I decided I'd skip the training ride and let the legs recover a little longer. Maybe I'll do an easy ride this afternoon if the rain holds off.