28th in RR and that put me in 4th for the Overall.
Yeah, 28th...My legs were shot going into the last 1k to the finish. Looking at the HR file, I was fine, but my body wasn't having any of it. My legs are shot right now! They only really started bothering me going into the final lap. That final lap (4 laps at 10.5 m. each), I started cramping in my hamstrings (l/r) and especially my right calf. Every time my foot was in the 6'o clock position, it felt like someone was plucking a string down the backside of my legs. Going into the final 1k, I felt like I was dying! Again, the funny thing is my HR data doesn't reflect it. Very strange. I wish I had my powertap wheel on so that I could see what kinda power I was making. We averaged 27.4mph the last 10 minutes of the race. Decent warm-up, but during the warm-up I noticed that I was having a hard time getting my HR to come up. Only 6 hours of sleep. I felt like I would have won the Crit & placed top 5 in the RR if I hadn’t done the TT...
I had the two guys marked that were ahead of me and one of them was making a move at the front. If he was going to go for a break, he was going to take me with him. I only took one pull (10second) the entire race and then stayed tucked in around the 7-15 spot. Some times closer to the front, sometimes farther back. I was close enough to the front that if a break were to go with one of the two marked riders, I wanted to go with it. There were lots of attacks and no of them successful. I'm not sure what I could have done differently to save more energy. I even put on an 11-26 so that I could spin more to save my legs...
Right now, I’m VERY tired and my legs hurt. Feeling the way I feel now, I’m not doing the NC State Championship race next weekend.
-B
Stumbled across your blog from the Harrells page. Saw you talking to Toby after the race I think. Did better than I did, at least you stayed with the group for longer than the first lap. I guess there's a learning curve. If you ever need a riding buddy around the DFMS area (I think I've seen you training out there)send me an email. I'd love to find someone to help me get the hang of things. j_brstl@msn.com
ReplyDeleteSWEET! Not about being dropped, but about having someone to ride with.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. Greg Lemond said it best, "It never stops hurting, you just get faster." If this was your first race, it was a tough one because of the 4's. That was a fast race @ 25.4mph average pace. I'll contact you directly about hooking up to ride. You will be lapping the field (or at least dropping other riders) before you know it!
As an aside, my race calendar is posted on the blog so let me know if there is anything you either want to car pool to or split a hotel room for.
-B