This week is a recovery week so I’ve only done easy rides and went to the gym a couple times. It’s also been raining a lot, even to the point that Eagle Rd was closed due to flooding! But today the rains stopped and the sun came out just in time for the third Nampa criterium. It was still a windy day, but not as bad as it has been. I went out to the course fairly early because I wasn’t sure they would move the start times back now that we’re on Daylight Saving Time. They did move our start times so I had plenty of time to help sweep the course and take some pictures of the “B” group racing before me (the photos are of Michael and Jodi).

During my warm-up I felt good, but I still wasn’t sure what my top-end would be like during the race. Since we had more daylight we were also racing longer than usual, this time for 1/2 hour. I decided NOT to go ballistic from the gun, but I still went to the front and pushed it at my threshold wattage for a couple laps. Then I integrated into the front of the field at about 5th wheel and tried to recover from my initial push. In the pack, it was a lot dicier going through the second corner with the pack. That corner is the tightest corner on the course, even though I adjusted it to be smoother when I swept the course earlier. About the fourth or fifth time through, there was a crash coming out of that corner. I was just behind it on the inside, but I couldn’t tell what caused it. I tightened up my turn to avoid getting taken down and then looked up the road to see who made it through. I saw Matt and Andre go and I realized that it was no time to slow down.

So I put it in chase mode and caught them in about half a lap. I looked back and we had a pretty good gap. When we went by the crash scene, it looked like there weren’t any serious injuries. Matt proceeded to pull for the next six laps…that guy can motor! Finally he seemed perturbed we weren’t pulling through and would glance back from time to time, like saying, “Hey, are you guys going to pull through or what?!”

Andre pulled through and eventually so did I. When I pulled it felt extremely hard and felt like I was at my limit. Confirmation…I still don’t have the top-end speed! Since I was in a three-up break with a sprinter and an obviously stronger rider, I realized there was no reason for me to try to pull. Even when I was in the draft my HR was 171! So from that point, I just tried to take it easy and sit in, but then the attacks came from both Andre and Matt. I was able to respond to them, but it was hard and when I caught, I felt like I was going to blow.

We lapped a few straggling groups and finally caught the front group containing a couple of my teammates with about 5 laps to go. At one point I got next to my teammate Brad who was at the front and said, “Pull!” to him, so he could keep the pace high and deter attacks. But he thought I said, “nice pull” and pulled off! Oops, bad communication on my part! The final attacks started from Andre as well as the lapped riders. I knew I couldn’t beat Andre in a sprint so I stayed on Matt’s wheel all the way to the last corner. Andre and a couple of lapped riders were already a few bike lengths ahead going into the last corner so I figure I might as well try for second. Coming out of that corner, I started sprinting, but I thought I was in too low of a gear and shifted. As I was sprinting, I started to catch Matt and thought I could overtake him. But when he saw me, he kicked it up so it was a drag race to the line. It was too close to call at the line, but after checking with the official, Matt did beat me for second, so I ended up third.

After downloading my ride data from the Power-Tap, I confirmed I sprinted in too big of a gear. Looking back on my best sprint workouts, I usually sprint at around 110-120 RPM, but this sprint I was only around 100. It’s great to learn these things in a training race, so hopefully, I’ll have them all figured out for when it really counts! I am a little disappointed in not having the high-end power, but that should be coming soon so I’m trying not to worry about it. It was definitely a great workout!