Norwell Circuit Race, cat 3/4

After more than a month of no racing I figured Norwell would be a good place to pick up racing again. I took two full weeks completely off the bike (sort of) in late June and early July to vacation in Europe. We did rent bikes and climb Alp D’Huez while we were there, as well as bomb through the streets of Rome on super sweet cruisers in a sort of wanna be hipster fashion, so I can’t say I was completely off bikes

Nonetheless, it felt pretty weird to come home and pick up training again. I started off by logging lots of hours riding mostly at endurance pace with random mild intensity efforts as required by terrain. For the first couple of rides I really struggled to get past the 2 hour mark, but that changed quickly and 4-5 hour rides were once again OK.

My wakeup call the morning of Norwell was 4:30 AM. Not because my race started early (1:45 PM), but because I was going to Webster with Erica for the Danskin Triathlon. That race started at 7 AM. How brutal is that?!

Erica’s race turned out to be far more interesting than anything than I witnessed at Norwell, so I think that deserves a little report of its own. This year she stepped it up a notch by getting a Cervelo p2c with aero goodies and devoted a good amount of training time in her aero position. I knew that she would have a fast bike split.

The course has a severe bottleneck about 1km from the bike finish. Runners are both coming and leaving, cyclists are coming in and spectators are packed on both sides, all within the yellow line (one half) of the road. It’s chaotic and there are 3,000 competitors that pass through here. When Erica came by on her bike, a 9 year old girl jumped out of the spectators and into the course directly in Erica’s path. Erica hit her square on, went over the handlebars at 20+ mph and was laid out on the pavement. Her bike went flying into the crowd. I don’t know if the little girl is OK, but a quick Google News search for “Webster Danskin accident” comes back negative so hopefully she is OK.

After peeling herself off the pavement, Erica fixed her chain and brakes, and went on to finish the race. When she came by me on the run she looked like heck and bleeding on her hips and elbows. Luckily her injuries appear to be limited to road rash and bruising.
Despite crashing, Erica’s bike split was 9th out of 2700 total competitors and within 2 minutes of the fastest time of the day. Overall she finished 2/211 in her age category and was just 3 seconds out of first place. Erica is a stud.

As for Norwell, that is a much less exciting story. I was pretty tired before I got there, considered bagging it, but a $5 foot long and a Coke was a huge help. We were running late due to the Danskin incident, and I arrived with about 30 minutes to go. My bike was ready to go and it was plenty of time. I was the only NEBC racer in the field.

Ken was racing today in the ¾ field, and it was the first time we’ve ever been able to race together. As I lined up at the back of the field I heard a loud bang, someone’s tire blew out. Turned out it was Ken’s new superlight Conti tube. Those things are too risky for me. We rushed back to my car and I gave him my spare wheel. As he was fixing it into place I rushed back to the start. Sure enough they had already rolled out. I was able to catch on easily enough thanks to the long neutral start. I hung on the back thinking I would dangle back and help Ken catch on if he could get close, but I think he made a wrong turn somewhere and he never made it on. Bummer for him, especially considering he was there 2 hours before his race.

Norwell is technically a circuit race, but only because it’s just a little too long to be considered a crit. There’s one hill that’s used for the finish and it’s a little on the big side for a true crit. I didn’t remember it being too bad 2 years ago when I raced this field, so I figured it wouldn’t be bad.

My plan was to sit in for the first half of the race, then try and get into a move if I felt good. I definitely didn’t feel good. The first time over the hill is always fast and never really hurts, but every time after that was totally brutal. I forgot what lactic acid feels like. I was just sitting in, a survival mission, not really paying attention to anything likes attacks or lap cards.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I looked up and saw “5” on the lap card. I did some Einstein math in my head and realized that we had only done 11.5 miles or so. Thank goodness we were only going 23 miles.
In the second half of the race I felt much stronger. I probably was just getting used to the lactic acid again, or maybe we weren’t hitting the hill as hard, but it was nice. It helped that we were barely racing too. Every time the pace started to feel hard we would ease up. I worked my way near the front a few times, but a headwind was coming over the top of the hill which was the natural place to attack. I might have been able to give a half hearted attack once or twice, but there’s no way I would have survived off the front for long. You had to be super strong to attack into that headwind and stick.

In the final laps I was not seeing straight so my memory is hazy. It was hot out and my legs hurt. Wah. I think it was when the lap card read “2” that a pair of riders attacked and got a huge gap. Maybe it was 3 racers, I’m not sure. It ended up being the winning move, and the results show Cyclonauts and UVM. I thought it was BRC and Cyclonauts in the move so who knows. The BRC guy may have dropped out of it.

With 2 to go and riders up the road I got ready for a furious chase. I doused myself with my second water bottle giving me what I imagine to be an EPO-like energy boost. We were chasing to some extent, but there was no big team in the field other than Cyclonauts who was in the move. It was mostly a bunch of individuals like myself who were unwilling to sacrifice themselves. Had I felt strong enough that I could have actually won the sprint I would have been irritated, or maybe ever of helped the chase a little. Instead I just sat back, content to sprint for 3rd, listening to other racers drop the F bomb.

The last time up the hill I powered over to stay with the leaders of the bunch and gained a lot of position. Coming down the back side of the course I moved up on the inside until I was 5th wheel or so. We were really strung out. Just before the course narrows to a single lane, the inevitable swarm came up the outside. Our pace was slowing and we were still single file so I wasn’t surprised.

As we squeezed into the one lane bottleneck someone hit a cone. I don’t think anyone went down, but a Nantucket Velo rider made a super sweet move and slalomed between the cones. I was two wheels behind him and so thanks for not crashing. That could have ended badly.
We made the next right hand turn and had about 1 mile to go. The swarming had pushed me way back to the middle of the field and I was looking desperately for a free ride to the front. A pair of Mass Bay guys came up the outside of me just as Green Line Velo was giving an early leadout to Mark Theeman. I’ll take it. They were left out in the wind as the rest of the field stretched out. It wasn’t much but it helped to move up another 10 wheel or so.

The last turn came into sight, the break was nowhere to be seen, and not only would I not be sprinting for the win, I didn’t have a chance of winning the bunch sprint. I was still 15 or 20 wheels back.

I think the guys on the front attacked going into the last turn and carried good speed up the steep part. As for me, I handled my bike like a scared 12 year old girl who just had her training wheels taken off. I pedaled softly into the turn and made a much wider than necessary sweeping turn on the outside. On the steep part I tried to accelerate for about 6 pedal strokes (or 3 seconds), then thought “ouch this hurts”. I pedaled kind of sort of hard, and maintained more or less the same speed as the guys around me. I might have passed 2 guys and someone nipped me on the line.

That was a long hill and it hurt. I thought I was going to throw up afterwards and only finished a mediocre 19/50 for the day. Not a great result, but I don’t think I could have expected to do much better after 5 weeks of no racing or intensity. It felt like a Wells Ave race in March. I’m sure the legs will come around in the next few weeks.