Gma and Gpa Mad Dog with us at the Kennecott Overlook
I took advantage of my weekend at home, getting back into the swing of focused, regular training. I got in a good interval session to break the legs out of the funk they have been in, then rolled to Clarksville for the CRAM ride on Saturday. The ride follows the same course as the popular Sunrise Century, a ride known for fast century times held each Labor Day weekend. Both rides are organized by, and raise money for, local chapters of the Rotary Club in Clarksville. It's been at least 5 years since I have ridden the CRAM. In the past, the farthest route was 62 miles, but now they offer a full 100-mile century.
I got to the ride early to go for a warm-up spin. My legs are always slow to get going, especially after a day of intervals, It's makes it hard for me to hang with the front group off the start if they want to hammer 30 mph right away. Of course, since I was ready, nobody wanted to go super fast. I sat up front waiting for things to get organized for the first six miles. My patience were growing thin just as some of the I AM Racing guys got things going. We only had a 21 mph average speed at this point. I was hoping we would be closer to 25 mph for at least the first half of the ride.
CRAM start line
phot by ClarksvilleNow.com
I did a lot of work from mile 20 to mile 48. There were some fast sections that I was having a lot of fun on. The legs felt good so I contributed to the rotation as much as possible. I was freaking out the part of the group that was sitting on. Apparently, riding with no hands in the rotating paceline while eating Clif Shot Bloks makes some people nervous. Racing dulls my nerves. Sometimes you have to do crazy things to be able to eat in a race, and I tend to forget that some of those actions make others nervous. Our average speed raised to 24.3 mph by mile 50. I started to get some tightness in my right hamstring at this point and began to skip a few turns. My endurance is not there for 100 miles at that pace. I knew this and expected the legs to fade just like they did. Our group went from 40+ riders down to just 12 by the rest stop at mile 60, where we all took a break to eat and stretch the legs off the bike. After that stop, my legs were terrible. I was hanging on the back suffering by mile 66.
We got held up at a busy intersection at mile 69 and the group split in two. I was in the second part and went to the front to pull us back up to the lead group. I got us there just as we hit a slight rise. Right as we joined the back, two riders accelerated and the group blew to pieces. I found myself gapped yet again with not much left in the tank. I tried hard for about a mile to get back on, but couldn't get there. Those two riders who started the hostilities stayed up the road, then a group of seven formed up ahead of me. Two riders were with me, but once I finally blew, they came by and I couldn't even get on their wheel. My legs were gone! It was the most tired my quads have been in a long time...and I still had 30 miles to go.
I rode by myself for 11 miles before getting caught by one rider. We joined forces and tried to tick off the final miles as quickly as possible. I stopped one more time at the last rest stop, this time actually feeling better afterwards. We picked up a rider that had been dropped from the front group, then he fell off with about eight miles left. My companion began to cramp with five miles to go and he fell back. I pushed with what little I had left for the last three miles, which are on a difficult false-flat road into a headwind. My total time was 4:51 and ride time was 4:43. It was much slower than my best century time of 3:54, but it was just the kind of workout I need right now. After the ride, I almost could not walk into the school for the spaghetti lunch that was included in our entry fee. I hobbled in like an old man. Everything was cramping. That's when you know you had a good day on the bike.
The next week, I worked some long days down in Bellevue. One of the therapists there, Erin, has been riding a tandem with her husband, Jordan, quite often and they invited me down for the local group ride from Trace Bikes after work on Tuesday. It was a great ride. I enjoyed riding some new roads. We rode a few backroads in the area, hit a few decent climbs, then finished with a spin down the Natchez Trace Parkway. I was impressed by watching Erin and Jordan on the tandem. The last climb was long and steep for a tandem. I doubt Shannon and I could ride it without stopping. We have been riding the tandem lately, but still are a long ways from getting to the point Erin and Jordan are at.
The group at the Trace Bikes Tuesday night ride
Saw this little guy on one of our tandem rides
The next day was supposed to be the third race of the Music City Crits Series, but rain forced it to be moved to Thursday night. Shannon and I got in a nice spin on Wednesday. It may have been raining in Nashville, but not in Pleasant View.
View on our Wednesday night ride
I was off work on Thursday, so I took advantage of the time off to do a two hour ride in the morning, then worked on our yard and garden. Both are getting out of control with the high amounts of rain we have had recently. Something got in my eye as I was finishing up the yard and I had a really hard time getting it out, spending 30 minutes trying to find it. I never saw anything, but I finally got it comfortable enough to start getting ready for the race. By this point, I did not even feel like racing. I was tired from all the yard work and stressed from the eye ordeal. But sometimes the days you don't feel like racing turn out to be your best days.
We got the race late because of the time I lost dealing with my eye. I got in a very brief warm-up and started near the back. I stayed back there for the first 15 minutes to ensure my legs and heart were ready before I made a real effort. We were scheduled for 60 minutes of racing on the same course as last year's series, which loops around the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. I heard the officials making a few comments about race length before the start, so I assumed it would be shortened. That happened often last year in this series.
Music City Crits Race course. Race moves counter-clockwise.
The pace forced me to move up after 15 minutes. It was a fast race and guys were starting to get gapped near the back. My legs were tired from the morning ride, so I did not want to put myself into a position of having to chase too often. We started with 34 riders, but lost quite a few of the Cat. 3s. There is now a Cat. 3/4 race earlier in the evening so some of the guys are doubling up. Their legs were not ready for a 26.1 mph average speed for the second race. When I moved to the front, guys started yelling "He's attacking on the right!" and everybody jumped to my wheel. It's nice to see I have gotten their attention a little bit. They sure were watching me all night.
Hanging out near the back of the race. Thanks Dina for the pic!
I followed an attack at 27 minutes, trying to get into a break with John Carr and Josh Lewis, but the group gave us no rope tonight. We didn't even make it a full lap off the front. When I went across to Josh and John, I did it through the two hairpin corners. I passed the group in the right-hander on the inside. A rider cut down on me as I came flying through, forcing me to change my line. I was leaned WAY over. So far so that I clipped the short cone on the inside of the turn with my right pedal, which was at the top of the pedal stroke. I was afraid that the cone flipped out into the course behind me, but it just tipped over. I must have touched it ever so gently as I flew by. I hit that corner like a Mad Dog!
Video of a prime lap, shot by Dina
I stayed near the front the rest of the race. My legs were actually getting better as everyone faded. I had been struggling off the tight left hairpin early in the race, but now was hanging on easily thanks to using one gear harder than I felt like I needed coming off the turn. The bigger gear was tough for the first two pedal strokes, but then was much faster as I did not have to shift at all.
The pace stayed super high because we had two riders off the front. I had no idea they were out there. Apparently, they went off on lap 1 and had held 20-30 seconds on us the whole race. I did not see them until we reached six laps to go. Their gap was 18 seconds then. A few attacks from our group closed the gap to seven seconds with three laps to go, then we slowed. I found myself sitting in second behind Matt Meunier, who totally sacrificed himself for his teammate Tanner Hurst. Meunier put the hammer down for two laps, but we did not catch the break and wound up sprinting for third. A surge came from behind me at just over a lap to go and I got blocked in behind Meunier. Jason Chatham was on my inside going into the Turn 1 hairpin on the last lap, which forced me to take a wider line. I made things worse by misjudging the turn a bit and going even wider. One rider slipped under me through the turn and then sat up immediately after the corner. I had to get on the brakes to keep from running into him, then accelerate again to close the gap that was getting big in a hurry. Everybody was going all-out now and it took a lot out of me to get across the gap. I chased hard for about 30 seconds, then caught back on and weaved my way through the riders that were falling back from the sprint. I couldn't believe how strong my legs were as I was able to rejoin the front group of sprinters as they exited the backstretch of the oval. I still had too much traffic to go through though. You need to be clear of everyone before the last three corners because there just isn't enough time to make that many passes before the line.
I was unable to pass the rider ahead of me before the turns started because we had to funnel down to pass the riders that were doing the lead-out and had sat up. I was forced to pass around the outside of the next turn and did complete a pass. It was then a drag race down to the final corner. I got up alongside Josh going into the last corner and totally railed it around the outside to move into 4th in our group. There just wasn't enough time for me to pass anybody else. I was coming, but ran out of time. I was 4th in the sprint, giving me 6th overall. That was my best finish in this series and my second best finish ever as a Cat. 2, but I could not help but be disappointed. Even on tired legs I felt like I should have won that sprint. Positioning in the final lap is hurting me more than fitness at this point.
Race finish video, shot by Dina
I was glad to finally get to race after missing a few of the Music City Crits races due to rain. I decided to skip out on BUMP N' Grind the last weekend of May due to weather. It rained in Birmingham all week and the forecast was for more showers on the weekend, so I opted to stay home. I wish I had gone now as the weather stayed dry, but I did get in a great hill workout at home, setting a few new PRs along the way. I big-ringed a lot of the climbs, which I have never been able to do before. I am so surprised at how strong my legs have been recently. I feel like I should have lost fitness with my inconsistency, but I seemed to have gained a little. I still have about a month to get ready for another round of big races, starting with the Hyde Park Blast weekend in Cincinnati, followed by Indy Crit, which is one of the best races of the year. I'm holding out hope that I can somehow go to the first half of the Tour of America's Dairyland, but it is not looking like it will be financially possible, I really need to get some sponsors!
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