Vancouver Spring Series Race Report (March 12, 2006)

It has been a while since I have added anything to my website, so I thought I would write about a road race that I did recently in Vancouver. I didn’t train a huge amount over the winter since I was doing some traveling for job interviews, conferences, and pleasure, but I am still excited to race (you don’t need form to launch an attack, just to make it stick), so when the first races of the year rolled around I was excited to have a go. Roanne wanted to go up to visit some friends in Vancouver, so I thought I would do one of the road races in their spring series. I had done one before when I lived in Vancouver, and a friend in Vancouver named John “the savage” Markez lives there also and was excited to do the race. John is a really humble guy, he has been out on some 8 hour training rides over the winter, but told me that he wasn’t sure if he was fit enough to be my domestic (I have been lucky if I pack 8 hours of training into the entire week).

Anyway, enough details, here is the race report. We raced in the B category, which would be like category 3 in the United States of America. I was surprised at how big the field was, probably about 80 riders. The course was a 7 km loop with a big hill in each loop (which would prove to be my undoing). It didn’t start out too well for me, I took a last minute pee break but had to walk through some snow to get there, and when I got back to my bike and they said “go”, I couldn’t clip into my pedals. The cleats on my speedplay pedals have little cups that are perfect for packing with snow, so by the time I got the snow cleared out I was at the back of the pack. I was surprised at how hard everyone went out, I had been counting on using the first lap as a warm up, I guess other people warm up before the race. Since only half the road is used it is pretty hard to move up through the field, so I spent about the first three laps working my way up to the front where John was. But, after three laps and lots of work I made it there, and decided I better put the after burners on and lead the pack up the hill to get some face time in case the legs gave out later in the race. My brother Trev and a friend of his had come out to watch, so I wanted to give the impression that I was having an impact on the race early on while I still had some legs. In my limited road racing experience I have found that if you are lacking the fitness to attack and be on the front when it matters (i.e., the last lap), you should attack hard when no one else cares or wants to be on the front, so that anyone who is watching gets the impression that you are right up there with the big boys. A good example of this is launching an attack right after a bell lap in a criterium. Anyways, here is a photo of me leading the pack up the climb on the third lap:

That is John in third wheel. I thought I was setting a blistering tempo, but apparently not since John is smiling and mugging for the camera. Needless to say, after this effort I was a bit gassed and I dropped back through the ranks, and languished midpack for a few laps. The race was 11 laps total, and on about lap 8 or 9 the hill started to get hard. It was pretty warm and I had only brought one water bottle, and I ran out of water midway through the race. Here is a photo of me on the climb during one of the laps midway through the race:

On the climb of lap 9, the guy in front of me let a gap open up between the front group and him, so I had to try and chase to close it down. The front group was hammering away, and I spent most of the next lap trying to close the gap, with the help of some others in the same situation. We finally closed the gap to the front group right before the climb on lap 10, and at that point I knew I was in big time trouble, as I was totally cooked from chasing back on, and the climb was starting. So, you might be able to guess what happened:

That’s right, dropped like a bad habit. I was totally hurting, and there was no way I was catching back on this time. So, I rode the last lap with two other guys who had been dropped also. The last time up the hill was super slow, it might have been faster to walk, but me and the other two guys all came in together. As we crossed the line, the one guy was pouring his heart out about how he wasn’t meant to be a climber, the other guy was hugging him and giving an inspirational speech to the effect of “that’s okay my friend, today you ARE a climber!”, and me, I was using the opportunity to practice my Juan Antonio Flecha victory salute (see sequence below). I figure it will come in handy if I ever get some form and finish towards the front of a race instead of languishing off the back. After our race we watched the A group finish, some guy soloed off the front for the win, and didn’t even do any sort of victory salute. I was completely confused by that. Why bother winning if you aren’t going to perform some sort of showmanship as you cross the line? Weird.

Here is a photo of myself and John after the race. John is a complete animal. He rode at or near the front the entire race, and ended up coming in second. He is super nice also, I stayed at his house the night before and he made me sleep in his bed while he slept on the floor in his windsurfer carrying case. I felt really bad, but he really wouldn’t let me not do that. He claimed that he would rather sleep in the wind surfer case. As an attempt to use logic to convince him to sleep in his own bed, I raised the point that when I wasn’t staying with him, in all likelihood he slept in his own bed rather than in the windsurfer case, but he responded “Yeah man, but I hate every minute of it!”. Super funny, if John reads this then thanks again for letting me stay at your place!

Anyways, thanks for reading, and maybe I’ll write another report when I have acquired some fitness and stop getting dropped.