First of all, this was a great setting for a circuit race. It was a closed loop in a park overlooking Canyon Lake. Each lap had about 100 ft of ascent after a decent downhill towards the water. The edges of both sides of the road were chipping away which made it a little sketchy.
I’ve discovered that I’m a sucker for the break even though I knew that breaks hadn’t survived all day and this course is notorious for coming down to a field sprint. It’s just too fast to get away. Not being one who trusted what I had heard, I followed a 3 man break on lap 6 that I’m pretty sure would have stayed away if we would have worked together. We had a decent gap on the field but then 4 became 3 and then 3 became 2 and we got gobbled up.
We managed to stay away for all of lap 7 but here is where I made my key tactical error. After the field caught us, I decided to sit in for a little bit and get my legs back. The problem with this was that I did that right as the bell rang for the last lap and it was game on. All of a sudden, I was in the back third of the pack for the fast part of the loop with no opportunity to move up. When we hit the uphill portion, I was blocked and wasn’t able to move up easily. I tried my best but I needed to be top 10 at this point to have a chance. I yelled at some dudes to get out of the way and a few did but not enough. I sat up and finished with the pack but I learned a huge lesson in circuit racing that day. You need to be in position with a couple laps to go.
We ended up doing 8 loops. It was fast as hell. We averaged 23.8 mph and my average heart rate was 171 bpm.
Sunday – 36 mile road race. 3 laps around a 12 mile course just east of the malls in San Marcos.
We had 2 doughboys in the race today as I picked up Qunell early Sunday morning for his first road race. I gave him the cliff notes version of all the various players in the field as we lined up and the few pointers that I had learned. We had a one mile neutral start and I took this opportunity to implement my new strategy that I’d learned the day before. I slid right to the back to avoid any temptation of going in a break. I just didn’t think that a loop 1 break on an incredibly windy day would have any chance of surviving. So I literally slid all the way to the back of the peloton. The race started into the teeth of that nasty wind and I could see that a 3 rider break had formed as soon as we left the neutral zone. I wasn’t going to do any work, yet.
The wind wreaked havoc early though and riders were dropping off the back at an alarming pace. We started with 50 riders but it seemed like a third of the field was shelled after the first set of hills. I know that because I was still on the back.
We could see the break up the road but they were putting some distance between us. By process of elimination after surveying the remaining field, I figured out who was in the break and it was disheartening. First and second place from Copperas were in the break along with one of the guys teammates. I realized that this break could stay away and at that moment I was upset with myself for not going in that break. At the same time these guys were up the road, the peloton was being blocked helping them succeed. I rolled up to Q to let him know what I saw and then proceeded to work my way towards the front.
I got in with a group of about 10 guys and we rotated a pace line at the front of this chase group (which was now down to about 25 riders or so). We started to put a dent in the break which fueled more guys to work and we reeled them in about a third of the way through lap 2. Then it got weird. Everyone sat up. It turned into a training ride for the remainder of lap 2. We were literally chatting it up. It went from a blazing pace to conversation pace. Half the field had been shelled but we were certainly vulnerable to them catching back up.
Towards the end of lap 2, there were a few small attacks (one of which I followed) but they weren’t organized and the remaining field reeled them all in. On lap 3 as we hit the hills again, we were at about 90% of race pace but the wind kept us all in check. Then at the top of the hill and a right turn with about 8 miles to go (still into a hurting cross wind) this guy attacked. No one responded. Nobody (including me) thought he could stay away solo with the wind with 8 miles to go. He was putting some distance between us and no one was working together at the front. I could tell that he was getting away and since no one was interested in working together I had an idea. I didn’t want to do all the work at the front of this group just to give someone else a chance to win. So with 6 miles to go, I attacked. I never looked back. I just put my head down and turned the pedals over with foam coming out of my mouth ala a Andy Schleck time trial effort. We were approaching the fast section of the course so I thought it would make it a little harder for the field to catch me and perhaps I could stay away for a solo second place finish.
It took a while but I started to see the leader out in front of me and he became the carrot. I just kept turning over a big gear trying to catch him. Nearing the end of the third lap, the course heading west back towards the outlet malls with a hard left straight to the finish with a tough cross wind from the left. I could see the field out of my periphery after the turn and I estimated that I had about 20 seconds on them. The leader was about 150 meters ahead of me but I could see that I wasn’t going to catch him. I dug deep and managed to stay away for a solo second. It felt awesome.
Next week, Walberg and Pace Bend.
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