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.