Off and On the Back

Hanging onto the Cat. 1/2/3 race

Last Sunday I made my way over to Lake Charles for the LAMBRA Criterium Championships.  Donald Davis had called the day before and I told him to stop by the house and spend the night rather than drive the additional 3 hours from Pensacola. I was not feeling quite "up" for this race, but often enough that's not a good indication of how you'll actually race the next day.  So we were up early (I had to get there in time for the first race since I had the race clock, generator and assorted items we'd used for the LaPlace time trial) to catch a ride with Mark D. who would be helping officiate with Ricky. It was nice that the first race didn't start until 10:00.  When we arrived, the temperature along the lake was comfortable and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Unfortunately there were only a few more riders than there were clouds.  I guess the late date and location in the far southwestern corner of the LAMBRA district kept a lot of riders from coming.  There were only seven riders for the Cat. 5 race, and by the time we started the Master 40+/55+ race we had only nine at the starting line.  Among those nine, however, were some strong riders, including a couple from Austin. My attempt at a warmup was pretty poor and so I went to the front from the start and pulled for the first lap, hoping to get warmed up before the attacks started.  Half of the course was long and straight, but the other half featured five turns and a sweeping curve, all in quick succession. Anyway, as soon as I pulled off the attacks started and I soon found myself hanging on the back of the strung-out paceline.  This was not going to be an easy race and I was not feeling even remotely strong for it.  My legs were achy from the start, and getting stuck near the back where I had to accelerate hard after the turns wasn't helping either.  So there I was, hanging on for dear life and hoping that maybe the strong guys up front would ease up and put all their eggs in the sprint basket. The way I felt, I figured my only hope was to sit on the back and try to conserve as much as possible in case I got lucky and it came down to a sprint. Unfortunately, I was anything but lucky that day. 

When Donald launched an attack fairly early in the race it strung us out pretty well as we approached the technical half of the course.  I was near the back, behind John Dias, digging hard to close things back up after the first turn when he started coughing.  He was coming off of a head cold and in the midst of that last surge had apparently inhaled something.  So as we're going through the series of tight turns (this was basically a parking lot, so the turns came one after the other) a gap started opening ahead of him. He waved us through as soon as it was safe, but there was already a pretty good gap and we were already pretty well toasted, so just like that I was off the back with Glen Richard and I think one of the Austin guys.  I was already gassed and just couldn't get the speed back up to where it needed to be.  A little while later John recovered and joined us, so we became a three or four-rider chase group (I use the term "chase" loosely).  Oh, since I was the only 55+ rider, I won a gold medal just for surviving.  Anyway, that was disappointing on a number of levels.

So a couple hours later, since I was there for the duration anyway, I entered the Cat. 1/2/3 race.  This one was offering a good prizelist, so at least there were a few more riders (well, there were only 18, but that turned out to be the biggest field of the day).  I figured I needed the exercise.  By the time we started at 2:15 pm, it was nice and hot, and in retrospect I was probably already nice and dehydrated.  Of the 18 riders, five were on the Herring Gas team (one of those was a guest rider from Plano). My teammate Mark McMurry was there, along with a couple of riders who had ridden the Masters race earlier.  I knew it would be fast despite the small field size.  Sure enough, by the time we had finished a couple of laps I was already hanging on near the back.  Herring was launching attack after attack and there were probably only three or four guys up front who were both willing and able to chase them down.  That, along with a number of prime laps, made for some fast racing.  For a long time I found myself sitting on Mark's wheel.  Mark is a pure sprinter, so I knew he was not likely to get dropped and also not likely to put his nose into the wind unless absolutely necessary.  I, on the other hand, was suffering.  We were only halfway through the 1-hour race when the pace surged and a gap opened one rider ahead of me and I ended up off the back again with another couple of riders. We started working together and I noticed that the pack up ahead was occasionally bunching up which told me that they were not drilling it full-time.  There was hope.  I guess we were chasing for four or five laps, mostly holding our own, when the pack eased up for a lap and we (or at least most of us) were able to close it back up and get back into the race.  Of course, I was pretty much worthless by then and resorted to hanging on the back again to try and recover, which never actually happened. What had happened to slow things down and allow us to catch was that Herring had finally succeeded in popping one of their riders, Frank Moak, off the front.  The other riders were really feeling the effects of all of the chasing they'd been doing, so they had kind of looked around at each other when Frank went.  He ended up staying off the front to the finish.  Meanwhile, back in the pack, we were coming down to the last few laps and I instinctively started trying to move up closer to the front. It was one of those situations when your head writes a check your legs can't cash.  As I made the effort to pass a few riders I felt the muscle cramps starting in my calves.  That's very unusual for me in such a short race, but unusual or not, I got the message.  There wasn't going to be any Deus ex machina finish for me today. I made the best effort I could for the finish, but 11th overall was the best I could manage.  Again, rather disappointing.

So, after that whole debacle, and with the annual Six Gap Century ride ("It's not a race") looming this weekend, I decided I'd best take it really easy this week since the last thing I want is to start that 104 mile sufferfest with sore legs. I did an easy ride on Monday with the Tulane group, and that evening went over to the hospital to visit a good friend and neighbor who was near the end of her battle with colon cancer. At 2 am the next morning the phone rang. It was her mother telling us that she had passed away.  Somehow I made it out for the 6:15 am ride on Tuesday, but once the pace ramped up I pulled out of the long paceline rather than play chicken in the dark at 30 mph with the pedestrians and oncoming cyclists.  Instead I rode easy, eventually turning around to get back into the remnant of the group on its way back.  My travel plans are still a little bit up in the air for the weekend, but somehow I'm sure I'll find my way up to Dahlonega for that last hard ride of the season.  One little ray of sunshine, though was the photo of my friend Gina Voci's new little boy. Ahh, the circle of life.....

Up for Air (Long)

Pro/1/2 riders line up for the criterium start

It's been a busy week.  It all started about a week ago when, after considerable debate, I decided to register for the 50+ masters category at the Pensacola Classic stage race.  The fact that the road race was only 25 miles had me looking seriously at the 40+ option, but as the clock ticked toward the close of pre-registration I could see that the 50+/60+ field was going to be nearly the same size as the 30+/40+ field.  Also, I recognized a few names and knew it would be competitive. Brian had lined up a condo on the beach, so left NOLA in the early afternoon, arriving a bit before John, Mignon, Celeste, and Isaac.  That gave us lots of time to pick up packets and hang out at the other condo full of bike racers where there was food and adult beverages.

The Saturday morning road race was on a long 25-mile course with basically one strategic climb. Once we got past the considerable congestion on the side road near the start line, our race started out fairly slowly.  Eventually there were some attacks and little breaks, but nobody was letting anything go for too long in a 25 mile race, especially not before "the" hill.  I'd missed the break last year on that hill, so I wasn't about to take any chances this year. Naturally there was an attack there, but I didn't have too much trouble staying in contact this time even though we shed a few riders. Things stayed together to the finish and since I was feeling pretty good I was definitely interested.  With 500 meters to go I was up near the front on the left side when the pace ramped up prior to the sprint.  At 300 meters the sprint started in earnest but when I got nudged across the centerline I hesitated for a moment. One rider had opened a little gap and when another came past me on the left I went too, quickly dumping it into the 12 for the final 200 meters.  I was closing in on 2nd place, but the finish line came up a little too early, so I placed 3rd.

I was still hanging around the finish line when the Cat. 3 race's big pack sprint arrived, and didn't even realize at first that there had been a crash at the line.  One of the LAMBRA riders riding back from the sprint spotted me and said that Ben Bradley had gone down really hard.  I rushed over there to find him on the ground surrounded by people after having crashed head-first into the bumper of a car that was parked on the shoulder just past the finish.  Apparently he'd gotten nudged to the left and hit the barricade that was up against the big officials' trailer, clipping the wheel of one of the handcycles on the edge of the road, and then slamming into the car.  We would later learn that he had broken his jaw in a couple of places, broken a few metacarpals, fractured a vertebra (C7), and probably sustained a few other injuries.  His helmet was broken in a number of places.  The ambulance arrived and parked itself right in the oncoming traffic lane, completely blocking the start/finish with a big Cat. 4 pack sprint expected to arrive any minute.  They finally convinced them to move the ambulance before the race arrived, but the riders ended up having to finish in just the left lane which of course kind of screwed up the sprint. All that they posted for road race results were the chip times, I think without bonuses included.

The evening time trial was in a much better location than last year, heading east on the beach road with very little traffic.  I rode the three miles to the start with John and then did my usual disappointing time trial, pushing me way down on the GC list.  We headed over to a nearby restaurant for dinner later that evening.

I was up in the dark Sunday morning in order to make the 7 am start time for the 50+/60+ criterium in old Pensacola.  I'd ridden the course a couple of times before and really liked it.  The half-hour race was good and fast with one rider escaping fairly early and finishing ahead of the pack. With a lap to go I was second wheel behind a rider who seemed to be determined to pull us all around to the finish.  Coming through the second-to-last turn I knew he was going too slowly to survive and was trying to keep my options open, fully expecting a stream of rider to come flying past on the right.  Coming into the last turn I caught a glimpse of Tom Gillis, who had been providing a lot of the power in the group, coming past. I went for his wheel through the turn and sprinted hard for the line.  It was a repeat of the road race finish.  I got my wheel up to about his bottom bracket before crossing the line in 3rd place.  I ended up 6th on GC, one place out of the money.  I have no idea how they came up with the GC times.  All they posted were stage finish times from the chips, to the thousandths of a second.  I tried to figure out how they came up with the GC time they showed for me but based on the stage times they posted I couldn't even come close. I guess if you don't show all of the details, nobody can complain. Anyway, I remain very unimpressed and disappointed with chip timing.

I was still hanging around at the criterium for the Cat. 1/2 race, which strangely wasn't the last one on the schedule, when a medic from Sacred Heart trauma center came up and asked if I knew GW Wenzel.  Apparently he'd crashed and probably broken his collarbone and this guy needed someone to take charge of his bike since he's come there alone. Brian had wanted to get home earlier, so Celeste was driving back with me, I also had Mignon's and Isaac's bikes.  So with three bikes on the roof and three in the back we headed to the hospital to find GW and check on Ben who was scheduled or surgery that morning.

We found GW in the ER, still waiting for an x-ray, and got his truck keys so we could drive back to the race, transfer his bike to his truck, and drive back to the hospital.  I made him a little map to his truck because I was not entirely sure he'd remember all of our conversation after looking at what was left of his helmet.  Then we went upstairs to find Ben.  His parents were still waiting for him to come out of recovery when we arrived, but a few minutes later they said we could see him.  They had spent a very long time piecing his jaw back together with metal plates and wire, so his lip and face were quite swollen and there was still a lot of nasty bloody stuff draining out of the tube in his nose.  He was still pretty groggy, but we were glad to be able to see him before heading back to New Orleans. He was definitely going to be staying in Pensacola for a while and even now I'm not sure if he's back yet or, for that matter, if he will be back in New Orleans or in Plaquemines where his parents live.

Work has been really busy this week with a grant proposal that was due this afternoon. I arrived at the office on Monday to find the carpet completely ripped out, along with big sections of the wall, black plastic taped up, and our huge commercial dehumidifiers and air scrubbers running.  I turned on my desktop computer and immediately blew a circuit breaker.  Crap.  I ended up going back to the house in order get some work done.  Then the next day we're on the interstate driving out to Metairie to visit a friend in the hospital when the car sunroof virtually exploded.  I guess a rock popped up rom a truck that had just cut in front of us.  At any rate, it was really loud.  It sounded like someone had fired off a shotgun on the roof. I'm still trying to get that fixed. At least it didn't happen on the way back from Pensacola in the middle of nowhere. So anyway, I'm just now coming up for air and trying to catch up on things.  I still haven't gotten the Pensacola results in the way I need them in order to update our LCCS points.  Maybe tomorrow? 

Road Champs- Natchez

Cat. 4s

Last weekend was the LAMBRA Road Championships event up at the Natchez State Park.  Since I had to bring the medals, clock and a few other items up there in time for the 9 am Junior races, I was on the road well before dawn.  The Masters 55+ race wasn't until 1 pm, so once I arrived I had a little time to kill.  A cold front was on its way, and just as the Juniors finished it started to rain.  Fortunately it was never very heavy, and by the time the next set of races had started, the rain was over and the cloud cover was keeping the temperatures down to a reasonable level.

The 55+/60+ race had a fairly small field of thirteen, and the 7-lap race started out at pretty easy.  I found myself at the front more often than normal, and it was clear that half the riders had no interest in putting their noses into the wind.  This course features a pretty good long stair-step climb, followed by a short downhill and then a very steep but short uphill.  Then there are a couple of miles of rollers with a fast downhill left-hand curve coming into a right-hand turn, and then a short but significant little uphill.  The rest of the race is a net downhill run with a few rollers thrown in for good measure before turning on a very rough road for the final mile or so.  I think it was on the second or third lap, just after flying through the sharp right-hander, that I glanced back and sensed disorder.  Without really thinking, I attacked the little uphill and the next thing I knew we had a 3-rider break.  "Let's work together," I said as I dropped off the front and Stanley Prutz pulled through.  I'm not exactly sure who the third rider was, but the fact that we had three riders from three teams was good.  The third rider, from Shreveport's LaS'port team, eventually dropped off the back, but his presence in the initial break kept his two other teammates from chasing which was a huge advantage. After one lap off the front we had over a minute on the field.  Stanley seemed really strong and was probably doing 70% of the work for the last few laps.  I was struggling a bit on the climbs, especially that short steep one after the stair-step, and as we started the last lap I could see the handwriting on the wall.  Sure enough, Stanley attacked that climb hard and although I came over the top within a couple of bike lengths of his wheel, I couldn't sustain the pace and watched him ride away.  I finished out the lap, placing 2nd, and waited quite a while before the rest of the field finished.

I had gotten a spot in one of the cabins with the officials for the night, so we all drove in to Natchez for dinner.  The cabin was basically within walking distance of the start line, which was nice.  The next morning I decided to go ahead and enter the Cat. 1/2 race since the field was small and I obviously needed the exercise.  I was only hoping to avoid having to do an extended time trial for this one, and knew for sure I'd be dropped before the half-way point.  After a really easy first lap, there was a hard attack on the climbs at the beginning of lap 2.  I though that if they were going to attack the hills every lap for the next thirteen laps, I might as well let them go.  A little while later another rider who had done the same thing rolled past me and we started working together, eventually catching back up to the group.  We did the exact same thing for the next three laps, but by then a break was off the front and the group I was in was down to five of six with more than half of the race yet to go.  Another attack left just me, Stanley, and Brendon Hale, and we soon settled into a steady pace.  Again, Stanley was doing more than his fair share of the work, and again, I was suffering on that little steep climb.  Otherwise, though, the cool front had brought in some delightful weather and it was good training.  As we approached the finish line with two laps to go the break caught and passed us, and Brendon thought they had said that we also had only one lap to go (like it was a criterium and we were finishing on the same lap as the leader).  I wasn't so sure about that, but when he sprinted a lap later I sprinted too, but as it turned out we did indeed have another lap to go.  The officials felt sorry for us and told us they would count that sprint if we wanted, but we decided to finish out the distance.  The next time, Stanley attacked a little earlier than I expected and although I was gaining on him, I ran out of road before we got to the finish.  Of course, we were sprinting or 8th place, so it wasn't really a big deal.  Anyway, it was a fun weekend and I left feeling like I might not be in slightly better shape than I'd thought.

Next weekend is the Pensacola Stage Race. That's always an expensive weekend, but I like the courses and appreciate the support the north Florida guys give to the LAMBRA races, so I always try to make that one.  I'll probably go ahead and register in the 50+ race if for no other reason than the $10 lower entry fee.

Back At It

On the way back along Chef Menteur Highway

After a good four hours of sleep I rolled out of bed and onto the bike.  The air outside was thick and humid, and it was dark enough to need both headlight and taillight.  I was a little early, so I took my time as I rode out to meet the Giro Ride. The biggest thing on my mind at the time was whether to have hot coffee or iced coffee.  It was a decision that turned out to be moot when I found the Starbucks to be closed.  It seemed that they had electricity, so perhaps they were having trouble getting enough staff back to work or something.  There were a couple of things we knew for sure about the Giro.  Lakeshore Drive was definitely unusable after having been submerged by the lake during the hurricane.  I also knew that once we got out past the levee on Highway 90, where the road had also been flooded, we'd probably have to deal with mud, debris and possibly standing water.

The turnout was surprisingly good, and the pace down Hayne Blvd. was pretty fast, perhaps just a little bit slower than normal.  It felt good to be back at it, but events of the past week had clearly taken their toll.  Basically, I felt like I had been off the bike for a month. As we had crossed the industrial canal bridge I'd looked down to see that the huge floodgates, finished only a month or so ago, were still closed.  Out on Chef Highway the floodgates east of the city were open, so we were able to ride over the levee there, but on the other side we found the right lane partially submerged and full of debris, forcing us into the left lane along with the trucks.  It didn't take us long to decide it was too dangerous to continue, so we turned around, ultimately cutting about ten miles off of the Giro route.

Here in the city things are slowly returning to normal.  The power company made a lot of progress on Sunday, but there are still a lot of areas without power.  On the way home we watched a caravan of a dozen power trucks as it turned onto Wisner heading into town. I'm glad that tomorrow is a holiday because we can all use the extra day to get things back in order before returning to business as usual on Tuesday.

Power!

The power finally came back on around 11:30, which would be about an hour and a half ago, and the temperature inside the house is getting down to a level at which I might actually get a few hours of sleep. It's been a few rather uncomfortable nights, but really, it could have been a lot worse.

I'm heading to Starbucks in the morning to see what we can do about a Giro Ride, considering that various floodgates may or may not still be closed and some parts of Chef Highway may or may not still be underwater. It seems like I haven't been able to put together enough consistent quality training since that crash way back at the beginning of July to really get back in shape.  Some years are just like that.