I picked up Shannon at the airport in Birmingham after her trip back from Utah. We camped Friday night at the Pine Glen campground in the middle of the Talladega National Forest. We got there just before midnight and got the tent set up right as a rain shower moved in. It rained for most of the night, but we were too tired to be bothered by it.
Saturday morning was chilly and cloudy. Our camp neighbors were very entertaining. They were the type of people that had no patience for children and probably shouldn't have any...yet they had four. They were some backcountry folk that were entertaining and annoying at the same time. The guy was possibly the cousin of the West Virginia Ninja, Diamond Dave.We had a nice breakfast on the camping stove and then explored the campground. It looked much better in the daylight. There was a nice creek at the back that we walked around before loading the car and moving to Anniston for the race.
Our camp
We picked up a friend in Alabama
Shoal Creek
We arrived in Anniston several hours before my race. The weather was getting better. It had become warmer and the sun was peaking through the clouds every few minutes. It's normally windy when we race Anniston, but the breeze was very light today. The crit. is run in conjunction with the city's Noble Street Festival. The city really supports the race and welcomes all the riders. We walked around during the Masters race and chatted with some of the local volunteers that were marshaling the turns. They were all very excited to see an event like this in their town. I will have to say that the marshalls were by far the best I have ever seen. They paid attention, kept the roads clear and were nice. Can't beat that. We cheered on our friend Chris Cundiff during the Masters event as I played with the GoPro. I tried some different shots and a
angles, placing the camera on the end of the broom stick so I could get shots from above the riders.
Masters racers
The break that stayed away during the Masters event
I have raced Anniston the past two years in the Cat. 2/3 race. We usually have 120 or so riders. This year, they split us into two separate races. I liked it that we got rid of some of the less experienced Cat. 3s, but the size of the race was much smaller. We only had 38 starters in the Cat. 2 race. I like the bigger fields and the longer races, which is why I want to get into the Pro races whenever possible. Our race was set for 45 minutes on the 0.7-mile course around downtown Anniston. The finish line was at Noble Street, right alongside the festival.
The course is a simple 4-corner rectangle. All corners are 90-degree lefts. The finish straight is a long uphill drag that usually features a tailwind, while the backside of the course is the opposite with a headwind downhill. Turns 3 and 4 are tighter than the other corners and are encountered at higher speeds. That tends to be the scary section for us in a large group.
The wind magically picked up in the 30 minutes prior to my race. It was the usual direction. I got in a quick 2 laps on the race course between the Cat. 4 and Cat. 3 races. The rest of my warm-up was spent on the trainer beneath a tree in a bank parking lot. There was a stupid bird that kept coming to the tree and showering down poop. He hit Shannon as she tried to nap on a blanket in the grass and he hit my arm as I rode the trainer. Stupid bird...
I felt good on the trainer and was able to get my heart rate up pretty high, which is something I haven't been able to do the past few weeks. I got to the start line 12 minutes early to find the first two rows were already full.
It was a fast start and I was unable to improve much from my back row start the first few laps. We were rocking the uphill. It finally slowed down after 4 laps and I moved up on the backstretch, only to drop back again as there were attacks on the uphill almost every lap. I was felling better than I have felt since getting sick, but the hill was killing me. I had a hard time holding wheels and couldn't get out of the back of the group. My legs were not hurting today, I just seemed to be lacking the power needed to carry that kind of speed up the hill. I looked down once to see 28 mph on my GPS as we crossed the start/finish line. We had a 26.1 mph average for the first 15 minutes.
Cat. 2 pack
The pace stayed high for the first 25 minutes. A few breaks of 2 and 4 riders got away, but we were able to catch them with relative ease. I finally got up towards the front with 5 laps to go. I was very comfortable with my skills today, perhaps too comfortable at times. I was sliding in tight spaces and grazing hips with my hoods as I went by. It freaked a few people out, but I was fine bumping. Hips and butts are much softer on the hands than hitting trees.
Turn 3
I couldn't hold my position at the front. The pace picked up on the hill the last few laps and I was in difficulty again. I had been swinging the outside in turn 4 to carry the maximum amount of speed up the hill during the middle part of the race. That had mad a HUGE difference in the amount of effort I needed to stay in the front up the hill. The last few laps I got pinched on the inside in turn 4 and lost my momentum. It was bad line choice on my part. I was near the back with 2 laps to go and we were rocking up the hill. The group was altogether and my dream of a mass sprint for the win was looking probable. The only problem was I was too far back!
We did not slow on the backstretch with 1 1/2 to go and I was unable to move up. I got pinched again in turn 4 and was just 3 riders from the back of the line of 37 riders as we took the bell with a lap to go. There was a slowing before turn 1 and I shot to the inside and picked up a few positions. The group fanned out between turns 1 and 2. I took advantage and started working my way up through the middle of the bunch. I continued squeezing between people down the backstretch. I got to within one row of the front before the gap closed. I wanted to go to the front, but I couldn't get through. I should've been more patient and not committed to the center of the pack so early. The left side of the road was wide open for the last 100 meters before turn 3.
We were spread out very wide going into turn 3 and that led to some bumping coming off the corner. I thought we were going down, but everybody held themselves up. We lost a lot of momentum though. I went from top 10 back to about 15th. I had the legs left for a sprint, but I didn't make up much ground, gaining a spot and losing a spot before the line. The slower uphill sprints don't suit me that well and I ended up 14th. That's my best ever finish in Anniston and much improvement over the past few weeks. I'd say I'm back to at least 90% now. Still, I believe I could've been top 5 if I had positioned myself better. Positioning is key in a race that finishes in a bunch sprint. I can only think of six times in my life that I've put myself in a good position coming into the sprint. Of those six times, I have won four times and been 2nd twice. Definitely going to have to work on that! Race stats were 44:20 with a 25.7 mph avg speed. 28 laps for a total of 19.0 miles. My max heart rate of 183 was hit 5 times during the race, including at the finish.
Heart rate and elevation graph for my race
I ran the GoPro on my seatpost during the race. I'm still editing the video and will post it as soon as I get finished. To hold you over until then, check out the videos below. First one is of the final few laps on the Cat. 2 race taken from the live feed. The second video is clips we took during the day. I tried to GoPro out, filming from above the riders, below the riders and any place I could fit the camera for a different angle. Just a reminder, it was my first time trying this so please excuse the shakiness in some spots. I'll get better at it. My favorite angle is early in the video, during the Masters race, when I climbed up a street light and hung off over the top of the riders. That got me some funny looks from the riders, spectators and especially from the official on the moto.
Final 2 laps of the Cat. 2 race taken from the live feed provided by Jacksonville State University.
Video of the Masters, Cat. 2s, Pro Women and Pro Men shot by Shannon and myself. Used the GoPro a lot at various angles.
We had heard the the local barbecue joint called Dad's Bar-b-que was really good, so we swung by after my race. It lived up to the hype for sure, serving up tasty pulled pork, chicken, fried green tomatoes, baked beans, cornbread and more. Mmmm! We were surprised when Kenda Pro rider Phil Gaimon came in the door. It was less than an hour before the Pro Men's race and he bought a few pounds of barbecue and a jug of sweet tea. It must have been for after the race. We didn't hang around for the entire Pro Men's event. We had to be home to teach church on Sunday and it was a long drive back to Clarksville. We made it home just before 1 a.m. Here's some pics from the Pro events.
Kenda Pro rider Phil Gaimon in line at Dad's Bar-b-que
Tree growing out of a building at the exit of turn 1
Pro Women on the backstretch
GoPro...on a stick!
Me going for a low shot in turn 4
Pro Men were just a blur under the street lights of Anniston
Cruising green roads near Springfield, TN
No comments:
Post a Comment