RACE REPORT - March 21 2010 Tour de Kirche

RACE REPORT - March 21 2010 BETHEL Tour de Kirche

This week’s race was nice / warm and dry; I did the Masters 45+ again ( 23 laps) , big field about 60-70 guys. Today was a test for my legs as I did 67 miles Saturday and I had no idea how I would feel. The race started out and the pace was A-OK, I was moving back and forth left to right as I could and even got deep in the center a few times. I’m still nervous being this tight going over 20 MPH. As the race progressed I did a few stand up sprints up the hill to see how I felt and all was going fine. I also did 20+ minutes on the trainer before the race to warm up, I normally just ride around prior to the race. My legs and all felt fine so far, so I start thinking time to move up in the group. I ended up front in the wind once and wasted a bit of energy maybe on LAP 10 give or take. Then I just was trying to stay out of the wind and out of trouble. Somewhere mid race a guy crashed in the corner right after the finish line, I heard a guy came up on the inside and did not hold his line and hit this GUY. That’s the stuff I don’t want to happen your doing everything right and you get taken out. But that racing anything can & will happen. OK so were getting down to maybe 5 laps to go and the PACE which was already quite fast was wicked up even more and the pack strung out to a single line. ( we averaged 25 MPH for the full race ) that’s fast for me!! All of a sudden I’m struggling to even hold a wheel and not get dropped, I look back and am still mid pack but loosing spots quite often as everyone is itching to get up front . I do a hard effort up the hill on the right side to attempt to get closer to the front and now I’m gasping for O2 and feel my legs are toast. I hang on the back section and the next climb up the hill I’m close to done. We still have 2 laps to go and I’m shot. Guess I should not do BIG SAT rides ??? I do everything I can to hang on and finish up MID pack maybe 30th.

So should I not do training rides on Sat before a crit ?? My worry is I have a Masters 55+ 65 mile road race in 5 weeks and I need to not only get back into racing ( hence the training crits), but also get in the BIG miles so I can go at race pace for 65 miles @ Quabbin 4/24..

Decisions decisions !!

Well whatever I end up doing is all good and hopefully make me stronger.