Portsmouth Crit Cat3

Summary: a beautiful day for a race, too bad I’m out of shape. I finished somewhere in the top twenty, and my friend Eric’s pre-race prediction of a Paul Curley victory was correct – we were beaten by a 53-year-old. Average was a ~26.5mph, on a fantastic course with some tight turns, in a great bike racing atmosphere.

I got up there with what I thought was plenty of time (2hrs) to get a bite, walk around the course with my wife and daughter, see the 4’s roll off, then get back to the car in time for a little warm-up. All was going well until I got back to my car, which I thought was parked in a public lot, but it turned out it was a hotel lot and they kicked all the cyclists out. Therefore, I had to drive around and find a new spot to park (and I’m starting to freak out now), which was not so easy because all of the good spots were taken by now. I ended up parking by a cemetery a few blocks further away, and got in a solid 5min on the trainer before I rolled back to see the 4’s finish and to get in two laps of the course before lining up at the back (yet again) and rolling off. It was not the start I had envisioned, and I definitely struggled for the first half of the race, sitting in near the back and trying to get my legs and lungs to stop burning. Warming up before a 45min event is absolutely critical.

The course and the event were awesome – there were people all over the downtown streets, and the roads were completely shut down for the race. The announcer was keeping the crowd into it, and I could clearly hear friends and family cheering for me throughout the race. By mid-race, I was finally feeling better, and started to move around the pack with more ease. There were a couple of breakaways during the race, one early and one with ~10 laps to go, but neither got more than 16 seconds on the group (thank you to the corner marshals who kept us well updated) before eventually getting reeled in. Having no BRC teammates in the race, and not seeing Eric since the start, I stuck to my plan of not doing any work except to position myself, and was content to let the guys up front sort it out and chase down the breaks. There were some big primes ($25 and $45!), but I wasn’t in any kind of position to battle for those. I found myself shadowing Paul Curley for awhile, figuring he was a good person to sit in behind (too bad I didn’t stay there).

A friend’s advice to me before the race was spot-on: stay to the outside on this course, especially on the tight corners (#1 and #3). There was more room in those corners than most of the riders were willing to risk, so I moved well on the outside, and only had to worry about (A) the occasional drifting rider coming out toward me, and (B) a couple of haybales that were a little too far out into the street for my liking. Regardless, it was generally true that when I came through a corner on the outside, I found it easy to move up a few spots, and when I was stuck on the inside, I ended up losing 5 or more spots. As part of this tactic, I also learned to downshift one gear going into these turns (since the pack slowed slightly anyway), then I would swing wide and spin my way through the turn, upshifting once by the middle of the turn and once more coming out. Through this method, I was easily able to pick off a couple of riders each time through, without
having to kill myself in the straightaways (which were windy and fast).

I finally felt good coming into the last two laps, and put in some good digs on the backside to move up into the top twenty (staying on the outside) and force my way into the line. On the last lap, I grabbed the wheel of a surging Threshold rider coming out of turn #2, and thought to myself, “this is the ticket, here.” It was not to be: he slowed and I ended up passing him through turns 3&4 and immediately upshifted to my highest gear and sprinted out of turn #4. I passed a couple, but sat up before the finish once I realized I was too far back. I didn’t feel too bad about the finish, and I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like if I had gotten in a decent warm-up, and had a couple of BRC teammates in the race.

I made the mistake of skipping lunch in lieu of a rice-krispie treat on the ride home (I saw someone eating one, and it looked damn tasty). I went totally hypoglycemic by the time I got into the shower in Newton, and nearly fell over from dizziness and tunnel-vision. Lesson learned: Rice krispie treats may be damn tasty, but they are not recovery food……..

Anyway, this was an awesome event on a gorgeous day, probably the best crowd and atmosphere I’ve ever seen at a race. Definitely a fun event to bring the family to.