SIP Criterium Race Report

Southern Maine Cycling Club (SMCC) SIP Crit Series




So not having a bike I decided to run my ass off in a 5K Saturday to get a hard effort in this weekend. After limping home after a personal best in the Mark Hazzard Day Race, I arrived home to a message from Steve of Kennebec Bike and Ski that my Speedster is ready to come home. Crap! Now I have to ride the SIP crit! I didn’t want to be that guy who talks the game and then bails out, so I drove into Hallowell to the shop picked up the bike. It looked great and in killer condition with new shifters, chain and a new computer to top it all off. Steve gave me a killer deal on the whole shebang and I left smiling, but way worried about riding with elite level racers in 18 hours. I got home and slowly climbed the stairs to the bathroom where I drew an ice bath and soaked my body in COLD water for 20 shivering minutes. If your legs are trashed and knees are throbbing like mine after a super hard effort, an ice bath will do wonders for your recovery. It just takes some courage to do it, because let’s face it. It’s invasive.
After the bath I dressed then went to coach a lacrosse game on slightly better legs only to stand on them for about 3 hours which then negated the ice bath. I went home, dropped my bike and gear off at Wheels’ place and then got off my feet for the next few hours followed by ANOTHER ice bath, then went to bed hoping I would feel fresher in the morning.
The race was in Saco, about 75 minutes south of Kents Hill, so I woke at 5:30 am and walked over to Wheels’ place, jumped in his car and we were off.
We arrived in Saco at about 7am, registered and got geared up. It was cold. About 40 degrees with a crisp sea breeze. Wheels was unimpressed. I was hoping the cold would dull the throbbing in my knees. It did not. We both sat in the car trying to man-up to get on our bikes. Off course the warm-up was short and I never did feel like I got my legs to flush out properly. So what, I said. Stop whining and hammer as hard as you can. I did and actually hung with the pack of cat 1-4 riders (I’d guess mostly cat 3 riders, which is pretty damn fast, with one or two cat 1 and 2 guys and the rest of us at cat 4 ability) for 19 of the 20 one mile laps. Just 20 miles, you say? That sounds easy. But it’s not the distance. It’s the intensity. I can hop on a bile and spin an easy 50-60 miles on any giving day, but I can’t do an all out, heart pounding, leg burning, lung searing hammer fest any day I want. It’s just too hard on the body. So, after my hard run the day before, it turns out my leg muscle tissues were on a very strict time table of function. The bottom dropped out of my leg power with incredible swiftness at lap 19. Now, you may think that I just had ONE MORE LAP. Why couldn’t I just suck it up and finish strong. It was physiologically impossible. The muscles would no longer contract with any significant force. I was toast.
It did not help that I did not drink one once of fluid during the race as I thought I would be alright during a short, but intense race. I was so very wrong. I was helpless as I saw the pack roll away from me one mile from the finish. I cursed, put my head down and my hands out in TT position and tried to peddle as hard as my body would allow to at least keep them in sight. Keeping my head down on the back straight away was a poor decision (a lowered head isn’t necessarily aerodynamic anyway). I rolled straight on through the intersection where I was supposed to take a hard right to the finish line. I raised my head about ¼ mile after the turn, actually laughed out loud at my stupidity and sat up with my hands on the tops, turned around and spun lazily to the finish. I met Wheels who finished up front. I drank a lot of Gatorade, had a cliff bar to refuel my legs then we went off for an hour recovery ride, of which the last 10 minutes my legs began to cramp as my muscles burnt up the sugars I had just ingested 50 minutes earlier. Thankfully and mercifully, Wheels put things in perspective for me. Hanging with the pack in an “A” race was really pretty good. He confirmed that there were some really fast riders in the pack and the pace was rugged for him also. I need to keep fueling during the race and just keep hammering along. I’m going to try to do this crit again in a few weeks on fresher legs and see how it shakes out. A great learning experience and an even better training weekend. Next up the LL Bean Time Trial May 3.