SAN DIEGO CYCLO-VETS OMNIUM
ROAD RACE - April 14th, 2007
by John Bailey, Celo Pacific
I
have had very little training time this Spring due to a longer than anticipated
recovery from my jaw surgery. I am traveling for work the next few weeks
so I figured I better get out and do at least one road event before I start
training for the Fall cyclocross season.
The Boulevard race
course is pretty much a climber’s course and it wreaked havoc on me last
year. Given my state of fitness and recovery, my goal was to treat this as
a “training race” and maybe crack the top 20 out of about 70 riders. We
started off a bit slow and I didn’t get a good warm-up. Midway on the
first climb, I started to go cross-eyed and felt my heart pounding through my
skull. I backed off a bit and let the lead group of about 10 guys
go. With a pounding headache, I then chased a group of 4 for about 15
miles with them just out of reach. I had a teammate in that group who was
trying to slow them up enough to get me on, but the winds took their toll on me
and I had to back off.
A group of 4 guys
caught me at the foot of the climb on the final lap. I kicked it up a
notch and they suffered in silence behind me. They wouldn’t pull through
so I just put my head down and kept going. About 20 minutes into the
climb, I saw a group in front of me and I really opened it up, jumping out of
the saddle and shaking off 2 of the 4 in my draft. I then noticed that my
teammate (Jens Raz) was in the group I was now approaching (he was wearing black shorts so
I didn’t recognize the uniform :/). It is very bad form to pull guys up to
your teammate – especially one that is going for GC points in the stage
race. At that, I sat up and slowed way down. This caused enough
confusion in the guys desperately holding my wheel, that my teammate was able to
get a good lead on us. I sat in the group, slowing the pace whenever I
could by getting on front and then slowing down. Once I was sure he
was far enough ahead to assure his finish, I stood up and hammered my way to the
finish – dropping the 6 chasers behind me. We finished 14th and
15th respectively out of about 70 riders – the results page only
showed 23 but I think they shorten the list to those who have GC points or
something.
I had a lot of fun
playing the team tactics and I was quite happy how strong I felt on the second
lap. My fitness is clearly less than the cross season, but that is
expected. Our team puts on a race May 6th, but I will have only been home
from my
A smiling finish?
I guess I should have worked harder!
My teammate Jens
showing how to suffer across the finish
