Arkansas Classic Report

Large turnout for the Arkansas Classic collegiate races that included a couple of non-collegiate categories

In what has become a regular thing, I was again off the bike all last weekend. This time it was for a road trip with the Tulane Cycling riders up to Fayetteville for the University of Arkansas' Arkansas Classic. At least I don't feel too bad about missing rides right now. The collarbone break was 4 weeks ago and it's starting to feel a lot better. I may venture out for part of a group ride on Saturday, weather permitting. More on that later. Anyway, I was happy to be able to help out with the driving, since it's a 9-10 hour drive and it's better for the riders to be able to relax, sleep, read, or whatever than to be driving all day. The race itself has some nice challenging courses - especially the time trial and the road race. The criterium this year was your basic parking lot criterium. For this race we had Ben Bradley and Ben Spain in the Cat. A Men's race, Grayson Rosenfeld in the Cat. B Men's race, Jerry Cornell in the Cat. C Men's race, and Joy Jason in the Women's B race. Joy upgraded from D to B during the week after her first ever race weekend. Coming from Tulane's swimming team that closed out its season recently, I guess she'll just be around for a few more races this spring before graduating, but she brings with her a lot of basic fitness and a good competitive spirit. I wish we'd had three or four more riders make this trip since it's a dual-conference race which means larger fields with riders coming from everywhere from Minnesota to New Orleans.  The club put on a pretty good event this year with adequate officials and good results. After the mostly uphill morning time trial, we headed to the road race course for the afternoon races on a 20+ mile loop that featured a couple of pretty significant mile-long climbs and descents that had some riders seeing 50+ mph.

First up was the Cat. A Men's race. They made it maybe two or three miles before there was a big crash that took out at least three riders. One MSU rider had a suspected broken hip and one of the two Lindenwood riders who went to the hospital needed stitches.  Luckily the MSU's rider's bones turned out to be intact, but the ambulances in the road caused the following races to be delayed for around 45 minutes. Meanwhile, the Cat. A men's race was neutralized for most of its first lap. I rushed over to the feed zone at the top of "the hill" to hand up bottles to the two Bens, then back to the finish line to back up the officials if needed (they had three, so no problem, which was good since it was cloudy and too dark for my iPad's camera to get good video of the bib numbers). I could try and describe the A race, but Ben did a better job of that so I'll just paste in what he posted to Facebook.  Suffice it to say, with only two riders in the race they kicked ass and killed some dreams:

9 Lindenwood guys and 5 MSU riders. Course was a loop with a climb at the start and end about 1k long. First lap was neutralized due to really bad crash and dude getting Med evac. Second lap group of four with Ben Spain got off. Lindenwood didn't want to chase. Attacked up the first climb of the last lap. No one came with and I had a small gap. Knew the next 8 miles were tailwind so I put my head down and started drilling. Near the end of the tailwind section I saw the group of 4 in front of me. I recovered on a little roller and the lead group never looked back. Coming off the roller was a descent and right 90 degree turn. I built up a ton of speed and sailed past them. None of them had time to react and jump my wheel. Ben Spain kept them marked and I just kept time trialing. Headwind for last 9 miles. It was like the worse levee ride ever. Stayed around 175 HR. Figured I'd get caught, win, or die from exhaustion. Last climb 3 miles from the finish I was about to pop myself. One of those times your hands go numb from hyperventilation. Finally made it to the finish stretch and looked back for the first time since I broke away. No one in sight. People at the finish line didn't know I was the first rider across. Last hour I was at 4.9W/kg. Main pack came in 40s back. Good times.

Men's A Omnium Winners

Meanwhile, in the Women's B race that had started together with the Men's C race, Joy ended up winning, which was pretty impressive. It was the longest ride she had ever done without stopping. In the same race, Jerry came off the back at some point, and then missed a turn and had to double back, finishing 24th out of 30. In the Men's B race Grayson, who hasn't really been training at all, finished 10th out of 11, but with a smile on his face.  The criteriums the next day were actually pretty interesting and since they had like five officials on hand I got to take some photos which are all on a photo album on Google. The highlights of that race were Joy winning the criterium in a 3-up sprint and Ben scooping up enough prime points that, together with his 2nd place finish, pushed him into the Omnium lead by just four points. So with just 4 riders, Tulane won the Men's A Omnium, The Women's B Omnium, the Men's A Road Race, the Women's B Road Race, and the Women's B Criterium. We got back to New Orleans around 1:00 am on Monday. I went out for a quick easy ride on the levee at 6:30, then stopped by HQ to pick up the keys to the rental van that was left there (we drove in one of the Tulane motor pool vans). I threw the bike into the back, drove to Enterprise to return the van, and rode back home.

So this morning I went out for a ride on the levee only to find that they had it closed off at Jefferson Playground where they've been doing some kind of work on the levee. Just before there, I saw two Coywolves of Coyotes sniffing around the stables, no doubt trying to get one of the many chickens they have there. They ran back across the levee when I got close. I might have tried going around, but with the collarbone still somewhat less than solid I figured I shouldn't push my luck and just turned around, did a lap around Audubon Park and went home.

Looking OK, apparently, at 4 weeks

Just as well, as I had a followup appointment at Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine for 9 am anyway.  A quick X-ray and 5 minute meeting with Buddy Savoie and I was out of there with an OK to start weaning myself away from the brace. I'll be up in St. Francisville Saturday afternoon and then all day Sunday to officiate Rouge-Roubaix. I am thinking that I might ride out to the Giro on Saturday morning and hang off the back for a while until it gets fast before turning back. It's really hard not being able to really train or do the group rides, especially this time of year when everyone is getting excited about the upcoming races and everything. I figure that next week I'll start doing the group rides again. That will be five weeks since the collarbone break. Still, I won't be taking any chances, which means I'll be out in the wind and getting dropped a lot, which I can't really do anything about since I will be pretty out of shape. I guess it will be late April or early May before I'm back to training like normal.