Thursday, February 26, 2009

Snowball Crit

Sooooo (btw I think I start every post with "sooo" bad habit i guess...or maybe a good habit?), but reall...last sunday (2/22) I went down with the kendall beasts to virginia beach to do the snowball crit #1.  It is on the virginia beach course at the sportsplex which they hold multiple races on through the ytear.  its pretty much my favorite course...all flat, with basically no turns, just a big oval, you turn left...i can dig it.  the field in my race wasnt huge i thnk like 30people...it was raining most of the day but it actually got sunny for our race...i guess the weather gods heard i was getting ready to race and got scared.  it was fairly windy.  it started off pretty typical not too fast someguys attacking...oh yeah we were doing 36laps/25miles.  on the 5th lap (I think..about then?) there was a break of two a little off the front and they rang the bell for a prime.  i attacked on the backside of the course in a crosswind...i wanted to weave through these poles to possibly take out anyone following me but i thought thatd be a bad idea.  So i got a gap i caught the break and jumped past them i was coming into 200m to go when all of a sudden i got totally pwnd there was a guy on my wheel and he massacred me as usually happens to me with 200m to go.  I sat up when he crushed me cuz i wasnt gonna sprint another 100m for nothing...then past the line he kept going and he was on the gas.  The result of the small field was that his team (natures path) had 7guys and the field proceeded to go SLOW...in like 5 laps someone said he had a 40s gap...some guys started attacking and i was just kinda following the wheels, soon he had a minute and i was like i really dont feel like getting lapped (cuz theyre pretty short laps).  So i started attacking, guys were coming up in my moves and pulling through hard, but then thered be a natures path guy and they would just sit up...i tried telling the non np guys that natures path was just gonna be there so just ride around them...but everyone was noobing out....so I did what i usually do when I get nervous races.  I just kept attacking...eventually i shook all the pretenders and it was just me and one natures path guy...i asked if he wanted to pull through and he said no, i expected that so i was fine with it...i had a strat.  I basically drilled it for ~5-6 laps (forgot to say that when i finally broke it open was ~20 laps to go).  Then we had a pretty good gap and i basically begged him to come through, even for just five seconds.  He started coming through, just for a little bit at first.  The guy up the road was basically gone but i just wanted to stay off myself.  He was helping, but wasnt too comfy so i had to do most of the work.  At one point a group of 5 got pretty close, and it seemed like he was gonna give up so i had to hit a real hard 3 laps to blow it open again.  once we got to 6 laps to go we started seeing the back of the field...this is where my strat was completely gone.  I just kept going and lapped the field with him, with 4 to go.  Then all of a sudden insted of 1vs1 it was 1vs6 cuz of all the natures path guys.  I couldnt go anywhere and he wouldnt move from my wheel.  So i had to wait for the field sprint I actually felt pretty good i waited till ~100m to go to jump...i know sprinting is my weakness so i did everything i could to keep it in my advantage....i jumped through a tight hole between two guys hoping he would get scared and back off, but he made it or went around i had the jump on him and him till about 20m to go but then he passed me and won the sprint for 2nd.  I was kinda annoyed, but oh well...i got 3rd it was fun.  In terms of tactics I think what I shoulda done is once we got within ~10-15s of the field put him on the front and jumped him in the headwind gone straight across to the field and just driven it to keep him away...oh well.

Pretty long post...i think i should make it longer.  Soo, I wanna talk about burnout.  I was riding with a good friend of mine today, and he expressed the same concern a lot of people had expressed to me.  Everyone is afraid im going to burnout...not that i really train that much, but i am always really pumped to race, from february to october, and for a lot of people that tells them im gonna burnout i guess.  Now im not disagreeing with them...well i am, i dont think this im going to burnout.  However i wanna adress it head on.  If I do burnout thats fine by me.  The way I look at it, I've been racing for 7 years now and its not getting any worse, or boring.  I wanna be the best I can right now, and im having the most fun possible racing my bike, more enjoyable then anything else i can think of doing.  So if i do burnout in two years (tomorrow even) thats fine by me, cuz i had the most fun i could these years...if i burnout thats fine, ill get into something else...and maybe 20 years down the road ill get back into it and be a mediocre masters racer.  Thats just my take...id rather not burn out, but if i do at least i gave it my best shot.

6 comments:

chris said...

Good post...its always tuff to deal with a rider who wont help much but you were smart and drilled it like u should done...The sprint is tuu after doing so much work. You just have to play it smart and dont take too many risks too dump a guy who sat on...u gave it the right effort and u will come out that much stronger for it..good third and finished a lap on the knuckleheads that were letting nature whatever take the course. cheers,..podium baby, Burnout ? how when gettin podum ?

Chuck Wagon said...

I say keep going. Your work is paying off all the time and the reward is new and bigger challenges. Unlike a lot of people you race with and against, you are still very much on the left side of the great bell curve of your athletic ability. Focus and persistence are two big components of what's generally described as talent, and are often under rated. The greatest genetic gifts won't help you if you don't train. You seem to have a good dose of the legs/lungs side as well as a good dose of the head/heart side. I say go with it. I'll be cheering on behalf of the mediocre (at best) master set. Which is a pretty fun thing to be anyway.

John Raley said...

Wait a tik, ......are you calling me a Mediocre Master? Crackah pleez! ;)

You will not burn out.
You will slay the masses.
All hail the boi king~! (No pressure). ;)
I agree with Schmidt, you did all the right things considering the situation.
Awesome start to an awesome season!

Chuck Hutcheson said...

Good job at the race. Long post, just to get to the end and be called a mediocre master - there's a little salt and vinigar!

Nate Wilson said...

thanks for the comments guys...and for the record i wasnt calling anyone a mediocre masters...except for myself...in the future...possibly?!

dj cyclone said...

keep trainging in exotic locals and climbing Mt Lemon. Go global. Pedal toward the scenery not the devices. You got a good plan/perspective. Shuffle the deck and you will not burnout. Rust never sleeps and watch it on the masters comments even though DJ Cyclone exists outside time realms and rarely races.