I drank about 2/3 of a 2 liter bottle of Coke just before the start - my stomach's reaction caused me to hide in the field for a few laps, just before the finish, as I chided myself for drinking so much. Oddly enough I spent the first 15 laps riding okay. The last 5 I forced myself to the front.
I also dumped 4 bottles of ice water on myself - one over the course of a few minutes at the start line, three during the race.
Ends up I felt pretty good during the race. Worked for my friend and teammate so there's a lot more action than normal, meaning I'm not just sitting in the whole race. I had to skip out on the initial part of the race, where I probably could have used about 15 minutes of constant jumping, bridging, and pulling. Of course I did this to save time on the clip, and then YouTube extended their clip length maximum to 15 minutes. Still, though, this represents a good core of the race.
As usual, in hindsight, I realized I could have done things differently. I hope to return and give these ideas a try.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun in the race. I hope you have fun watching the clip.
Text is here.
Video is just below. Enjoy.
Note: Navone Studios are the folks that helped out immensely during the Spring Series.
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6 comments:
The video is set to private. Can't watch it.
Sorry, I thought I set it to public this morning. I'd set it to private so I could review it before I made it public.
Should be okay now.
From a non-racer (just a wannabe), even though your working for SOC in this race, doesn't it kill you to pull off to the sidewalk like that?
Is it that you were completely toast from covering the breaks?
On your team, how is it decided who the team will ride for? Points standings?
Sorry for the noob questions. Love the videos and filing the info away for my eventual racing.
Pulling off onto the sidewalk does essentially end the race for me. But my efforts had ended it before. When I started looking for a place to pull off I was already well-cooked.
I was thinking of pulling off at the top of the short rise, but I hadn't closed the gap so I made one more dig.
If the race had not been done at that point, I realistically could have been back at the front in about 1.5-2 laps, ready to go again - I'd done this over and over during the race. But the immediate effect was that I could barely get up that hill.
With SOC/me, we'd done a lot of training the week prior. We did sprints one day - and although I out-jumped him once, he killed me in every following sprint. I gave him tips between sprints and he ended up distancing me pretty well in the latter sprints. I realized that he'd be much better suited to the long sprint at Naugatuck, so I offered to work for him.
In other instances we'd work for someone (like me at Bethel) because the rider explicitly stated that they wanted to focus on a particular race/series.
By "working for" SOC, I mentally forfeited any thoughts of working for myself.
I skipped them in the clip but a few times he asked me if "we" needed to chase a particular break down. I replied to the negative each time and then went to the front and chased them down. I didn't want him to work, but I also didn't want him to stress about a break getting away. This illustrated this concept of "working for someone" pretty well.
Don't worry about the questions - that's a main reason why I put up these clips.
Hey Aki! I have been looking forward to this video since the race! I remember thinking that you were doing a lot of work in the race, and making a deliberate effort to stay near you and cover your wheel. Looking at the video, that last move to cover Jefferson brought the whole pack close enough to the two off the front that I was able to bridge and catch them at the line. Can't wait to do it again. I'll give a wave, as it seems kind of customary. Thanks for the shout out!
Sam
Sam - I was impressed when I read your name at the top of the scoreboard. You rode really smart, smooth, strong. I told the guys at Bethel that we'd see you in the results in the 3s this year. Good race, nice job.
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