Mystic Velo Criterium

The three days prior to the Mystic Velo Criterium were rainy and I didn’t ride much, forcing me into a mini-taper before the race. On both Wednesday and Thursday I tried to get some work done indoors on the trainer, but I just can't seem to get it done there. Power output is terrible relative to perceived effort. All three days turned into easy recovery rides.

I was really looking forward to this race. The field was going to be a good size with about 60 racers pre-reg'd. The flat and twisty Ninigret track seems to suit me well and I always enjoy myself there. This was also my first race of the season using my slick new carbon wheelset and they felt great. I really missed not having PowerTap data for the race, but the PT wheel adds somewhere around three-quarters of a pound to the weight of my bike compared to the carbon rear. It may just be mental but I swear the carbon wheels feel much faster.

NEBC had five in the cat 4 field, including Joe, Oscar, Colby, Bernard, and myself. Since my legs were extra good for today and it was my only race for the weekend, my plan was to spend a little more time than usual at the front. There were a handful of strong riders I wanted to watch for a breakaway opportunity. Guido (the happy German), Paul Miller, two BHCC racers, and Cambridge Bicycles were all threats in my mind.

Right from the start the size of the field was annoying. Everyone seemed to have a different idea of what the right way to take the corners is. Younger inexperienced looking guys were dive bombing the turns on the inside and hitting the brakes hard mid turn. Older more experienced looking racers refused to do so and would weave their way between through the braking riders on the turns sometimes at a significant speed differential. The race did not have a very nice feel to it.

It was announced before the race that there would be one $20 prime during the 22-lap race. I think they ended up ringing the bell on lap 3, maybe lap 4. It was really early on anyways. I would have liked to make an attempt for it, but I was very casual at the start lining up in the back quarter and was way too far back to have a shot.

With about 15 to go Oscar pulled up along side me and said that he wanted to ride around on my wheel. He wasn't enjoying the craziness that was going on mid-pelican and wanted to stay at the front to be safe. I had an interest to expand a bit more energy riding up front anyways, and if I could have a teammate sitting on my wheel, all the better.

From here on out I got one heck of a good workout, never falling back more than five wheels. I grabbed a wheel when I could, but spent a real lot of time out in the wind. In fact, I've ever spent so much time out of the draft.

Not once did I initiate an attack, but I did chase down several. All attacks were fruitless, and no one was able to stay away for more than one lap. The wind was gentle but consistent coming out of the southwest, which meant a headwind on the back straight and a tailwind at the finish. I didn’t expect this wind to keep things together so much, but apparently it was enough.

With three to go, I was feeling really tired. With two to go I was ready to puke, but held it together for another lap at the front. When they rang the finishing bell on the last lap I thought I was going to blow up and considered pulling off to give others a clear shot. I was being swarmed by riders on either side so I grabbed a wheel about 5 or 10 back and hung on for dear life. I wasn’t really sure if Oscar was still on my wheel or not at this point but that was about the only thing that kept me going. With half a lap to go Joe moved up on the inside of the track. We were really strung out at this point and I was able to move to the inside and got on the wheel of who I believed to be Paul Miller. Going through the last turn Miller moved up hard on the inside. I pedaled out of the turn with everything I had moving myself up on the inside as far as about 5^th position before totally blowing up with 100m to go. At this point I could barely turn a pedal over and more or less coasted the last 100m. Joe came around me with tremendous acceleration but got blocked out by another racer shortly after, ruining his shot at a top five finish. After being passed by what felt like the entire pelican, I was happy to find out I was still 14^th across the line. It took me a good 5 minutes after the race to catch my breath. My wee-sized lungs weren’t too happy with my decision to go so deeply anaerobic after (presumably) riding around threshold for most of the race.

So no power data to talk about in this race report. I hate not having my data to look at, it kind of feels like the race never happened. I usually like to look at average power in the crucial time increments leading up to the finish. For this race I’m sure that all average power from 30 minutes down to 2 or 3 minutes would have been relatively high. What would be of most interest is the last minute or two. It’s one thing to practice anaerobic finishing efforts when you’re fully recovered, but to do so starting from a heart rate above 180 is another. It’s this type of effort that you end up hitting your max heart rate and it happens very rarely (at least for me). I’ve never hit within 5 bpm of max heart rate during training. Even during the majority of races I rarely come within 5 bpm of max HR as it takes just the right sequence of events to create that kind of push. It’s this kind of effort that you get to see your true maximum power effort for some duration or another. I’m bummed that I didn’t have the PowerTap wheel on to record it.