Tradezone Crit #3- March 8...A win :-)

First off, what a beautiful day to be on the bike. Picture perfect weather hovering right around 65. What a nice change!

I woke up this morning a little sore from yesterday morning's stomp around Arlington. Saturday's ride turned out to be my hardest ride in about 2 1/2 months (2.75 hrs, TSS-250,IF-.96,NP-322, along with setting my best 1min power #). Lots of hard race intervals worked in during the ride. Basically, sprint HARD for 30 secs, settle in slightly above threshold for ~4 minutes and then sprint for 10-15 secs. It's a very different type of effort than I'm used to doing for triathlon.

On the drive over to the Tradezone C (cat 4/5) race, I was contemplating strategy. Hmmm, what to do? I finally decided to just take it easy in the pack and go for the sprint win. Once I arrived, I registered (good to see Jenn Brown again) and went out for a good 25 minute warm-up. This is weird. After about 15 minutes, my legs felt really good. I worked in a couple of hard sprints...and still pretty good. Maybe it had to do with the fact that we had "Fajita Night" at the Warner household last night. Igda makes some tasty fajitas. Cool. I was flying the DC Tri Club kit today (Sean said they were comfy bibs and he was right).

The race was ready to start. I made it to the line about 3/4 of the way back. Race number pinned on correctly. Saddle bag removed. What could possibly go wrong this time? For the first time, I wasn't called out before the race started! Also, note to self, starting in the back really sucks. The yo-yo effect is ridiculous. Lap 1 & 2 were uneventful. I was sitting at the back chilling, but getting pissed about the yo-yo'ing.

At the start of the third lap, I worked up toward the front. A guy came by my left, so I jumped on his wheel and he pulled me all the way to the front. Ok, do I stick to the plan or go to plan B. Ummm, there is no plan B. Take a wild guess at what I did next? Yep, got on the front and decided to drill it for a bit and see what happens. Amazingly, after about 30 seconds I looked back and there was only an NCVC rider (Chris) on my wheel, and we had about a 5 second gap. I told him to hang on because I'm going to hit it hard for a bit. After roughly 2 more laps, we had 20 seconds. I looked at Chris at that point and said, "ok, hard 30-45 second pulls. Let's work this!"


I knew Chris was young, but I didn't find out until after the race while we were talking that he's in high school. He made a comment that one of his teacher's is in the DC Tri Club. A really good kid. I'm not sure he said a word the entire break, but he at least had the guts to stick with me. I just made sure to keep giving him encouragement and cheer him on. I could tell he was getting tired after being off the front for about 5 laps. I started making my pulls longer and using his pulls as a quick recovery for me. I needed him with me as long as possible, but I also hadn't planned on being where I was right now. I was feeling great.


We got the gap up to 30 seconds before it started to come down with 7 to go. I was still feeling really good. I could tell Chris was closing in on running out of gas, but I couldn't bring myself to leaving him. The good lesson I feel I gained from this is that I need to prepare for those situations where you need to decide, "Do I attempt to keep going by myself? Or do I hope he can recover, but risk being gobbled up by the field all for not?" With 6 to go, I told Chris we needed to give it everything this lap. The gap was down to around 10 seconds. I was hoping the chase group might relax a bit once they saw us in spitting distance. Well, right toward the end of 5 to go, I looked back and Chris gave the goodbye waive. He was done. I drove on for another half a lap and then realized I should just try and hang in for the sprint.

On laps 4, 3 & 2, I just stayed in the top 8. I got some nice recovery in during this break. We had to slow down on the back side each of these laps anyhow since there was a pretty serious crash in the women's race (caused by pothole I'd imagine).


On the bell lap, a Bike Rack dude gassed it at the start. I was right next to him since I wanted to be very near the front going into the first turn. I'm still not sure, but I think he was trying to give his boy's a good lead out by stretching out the field for the final lap, but they let a gap form and I jumped on his wheel. I just sat second wheel going into the final turn. I was a little nervous he was going to let up and then I'd be stuck at the front. Thankfully, that didn't happen. Right after the final turn, I'd say roughly 4 guys came around the sides of me. I jumped and hit it hard. I saw the ABRT rider pulling the WWVC rider just ahead. I latched onto the WWVC wheel for about 5 seconds. I saw him going left of ABRT, so I decided to go right of ABRT. With about 30 feet to go, I was like, "holy cow! I think I'm going to win this thing!" It was close. I believe I nipped the WWVC rider by a half a wheel at the line. Wow, that felt good! To be away in a 2 man break for 65% of the race and still have enough in the tank to take the sprint was a great feeling. I even managed to win a big ol' can of Finish Line Citrus Degreaser!

I got some good confidence from this race, but I'm not letting this go to my head.

Quick power #'s:



Break:
Duration: 27:26
Work: 561 kJ
TSS: 52 (intensity factor 1.066)
Norm Power: 356
VI: 1.05
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 11.184 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 831 341 watts
Cadence: 30 131 93 rpm
Speed: 19.9 30.6 24.5 mph


race:
Duration: 50:01
Work: 905 kJ
TSS: 87 (intensity factor 1.021)
Norm Power: 341
VI: 1.13
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 20.229 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 950 302 watts
Cadence: 22 141 91 rpm
Speed: 14.6 38 24.3 mph

Final Sprint:
Duration: 0:40
Work: 26 kJ
TSS: 4.6 (intensity factor 2.018)
Norm Power: n/a
VI: n/a
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 0.335 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 132 926 633 watts
Cadence: 60 111 92 rpm
Speed: 22.9 38 30.0 mph

Here's a good series of shots of the finish (and not so smart move of taking the gutter by some guy):






Photos courtesy of Amy Jones (thank you!)