Crit Racing at Lake MacBride

To me, Kent Park feels like the unofficial start to the Iowa racing season. It is springtime, and a lot of the upcoming year's racers are in attendance. With that in mind, Sunday's race "The Long and Grinding Road" was positioned as a training race for Kent Park.

This caused a very competitive field, despite the bitter coldness, with 33 riders lining up. I imagine this race would have been even larger if the weather would have been more hospitable. The format of this race turned out to be much like a crit. Except the circuit was slightly longer than a mile and we were doing 2 hours + one lap (instead of 45 minutes). I calculated about 44 miles of total racing. Each lap had an uphill section, a downhill section and a mild headwind section. We ended up doing over 30 laps.

A lot of familiar faces were in attendance, with the exception of a team of three cat 1,2 riders from wisconsin wearing orange jerseys (Great Dane VC). No one knew exactly how to read them, so they ended up adding an excellent element of competition and strategizing to the race.

Because we ended up doing so many laps up the park's incline section, I would say the race favored the lighter rider who likes to attack on hills. As proof to the this I believe the top 5 riders were all under 150 (jim cochran, sean walker, james carrico...).

The wisconsin guys were organized and even had hand signals to communicate their tactics to each other (not to mention matching orange bikes). Jim Cochran ultimately escaped the group and built up a :50 second gap which held for the win. The Wisconsin guys were content to race for second, which they did successfully. We weren't really chasing Jim toward the end of the race. I believe because it seemed like the three guys from GDVC were technically 'obligated' to take on this task.

About one hour into the race is when riders who were still in the main group started to pop. There was a group of around ten, however that held together, despite some pretty quick laps from time to time. There was never a definitive effort to catch the leader, or make another break, but each lap was tense, not knowing if the 'hammer' was going to come down prior to the bell lap.

I was at the front portion of the lead group most of the second half of the race. I just felt comfortable with a certain tempo, and didn't want to be too far back if someone attacked. I dosed out my efforts, focusing more on 'holding back' then 'keeping up'. This is a good sign of fitness for me, because I know last year at this time, I would have been hanging on for dear life.

In the race for second, Sean Walker (and two of the orange Wisconsin guys) attacked hard on the last stretch of the final lap which is an uphill finish. My legs completely popped as I tried to match this acceleration... however, I didn't get passed, though I was basically standing still, because the last lap had spread everyone out, and I had a good gap between the next placed rider. I finished 6th overall, or 2nd out of 11 Cat 4 riders.

I had a lot of momentum at the start of the 2007 season... but some personal issues threw me off track in March and April. I came out of the funk strong, however and began winning cat 4 races mid-summer and into the cyclocross season. So, I am on sort of a mission, picking up where I left off last year at this time.

There are going to be a lot of great races this year, and the skies are only going to get clearer from here! I can't wait to put my baclava (?) up for the season. Man it is hard to look cool wearing a ski mask. If you want to see how cold it was and/or how dorky I looked, there are some pics by Shane Oswald here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/iowa_cycling/