Race Report-Davis Crit 3-14-10

This weekends race really begins the race season for me. I have already done a couple of races this year but they were mainly tune-ups for what I perceive to be the start of the season; March. I had a specific mind set for the Sunday races (I was entered in the 3/4 Elite race and the Masters 35 3/4 race) that being to help my team mates as much as possible to win. I wanted to be near the front and push the pace whenever I could.

In race one (Elite 3/4) I got to the line late and was at the back of the field to start (mistake #1). The field was rather large on a fairly tight technical course. There were many cars parked on the course which made for some unusual obsticles. At nearly every turn there were dips which made high speed cornering pretty scary at times! So off we went, the pace was extremely high as this race had many college teams from around the state participating as well (you bucks=fast unseasoned riders). Being at the back of 80 riders trying to get to the front proved difficult especcially at the pace we were going. But, around lap 8 or so I was finally in the to ten and then shortly thereafter I was at the front pulling. I stayed in the top ten from that point on for the rest of the race. At one point an 2 man attack got off the front and no one really seemed that interested in tracking them down...we were inside of 8 to go so i thought that it would behove us to go get them. So off I went to the front and started pounding the pace (mistake #2). I kept the pace high until we caught them about a lap and half later. I was pretty gassed at this point and since I had not seen any of my teammates I drifted back until I found one (Jason Buckley). Jason caught me with about 3 to go and I sat on his wheel for the next couple of laps. Goin into the last lap we were placed around 15th and flying, Kevin Smith from Nor Cal came up next to and I let him jump in between us for the last lap as I knew those 2 guys would dprovide a great lead out! As we came to the last hard right hander at over 30 mph Jason did not get the corner quite right and hit the curb and crashed which of course caused Kevin and I to loose all of our momentum. Hard to see a teammate go down that hard right in front of you on the last lap. He may have separated his shoulder do not know yet.
Anyway I finished somwhere towards the middle of the pack and was happy just to be upright. My max heart rate is 190, during the race i hit 189 and AVERAGED 180 which really tells me how hard we were really going. Avg speed was 26+ for this race. All in all I was pretty happy with the result as I did as much as I wanted to do in a very quick race!

Race 2 (master 35 3/4)

So this race my goal was to work as hard as I could to help teammate Steve Kirby get a good finish. Between myself Steve and a coupld of NorCal guys (Kevin Smith and Javy) we controlled the front of the race for the majority of the time. Javy made a couple of laps of serious pulling working for Kevin and then fell back a bit at the end. I spent as much time as I could with Steve at the front pulling and just making sure no attemted breaks would go. The pace was manageable and my HR considerably lower at 168 for the average. With a few to go we had moved to the front and iwas just looking around at some faces...they were gassed. So with 2 to go I figured I would try and blow the field up. I set off on a pretty sick attack that I held for much of the lap in hopes the Steve would be able to sit on someones wheel and get a victory....as I faded (blew up) on the last lap as the field went by it was alll strung out and spoerated into groups, my plan had worked for the most part. I did not see the finish but I believe that Steve got a top 10 (not sure though). That attack at the end of my second race in a couple of hours was very satisfying and let me know finially that all of the hard training I have been doing is going to pay off!! Really one of the funnest races I have ever had on a bike!! Here are a few pics from the race!
ciao for now!
Paul