Lake County Stage Race 6/20-6/21/09

This is the last weekend in the first half of the season. It was ridiculously hot. My cycling computer logged 97 deg both days, but with the humidity I think the heat index was well over 100. It was a typical stage race format with a criterium and time trial on Saturday and a circuit race on Sunday.

After placing well last weekend I was hoping to get on the podium this weekend. I did not have the team support of last week, but Ben did upgrade to Cat 4 and joined in the fun. Eric and Amy also raced the full schedule this weekend. Marco came down and represented at the Cat 5 crit on Saturday and Andrea came down to help Eric in the epic 80 mile road race on Sunday. I wish I was able to upgrade to Cat 3 just to participate in this road race. It was an 80 mile loop with a race caravan and everything. This is the first time they have tried this in Florida in a long time. I am hoping they are able to do this again next year when I have hopefully upgraded.

As I said it was really hot on Saturday and the crit course was in a new development with no houses, trees or anything taller than grass to provide shade. Our race was scheduled for 1:45 and even drinking water all morning and popping some salt pills did nothing to ward off the dehydration. Other than the heat the race was awesome. The roads were perfect and there was a nice little hill at the finish to really make things burn. Towards the end of the race I moved up to position myself for the sprint. We came around the corner and I uncorked a vicious sprint up the hill to the line. I put a good gap on the field and came across pumping my fist in victory. As I let up and rolled down the other side of the hill the field came by me and I heard a guy say "You still have a lap to go." Oops! In my dehydrated delirium I lost track of the laps. I managed to roll across the line just on the tail end of the pack. I felt really stupid, but I guess it can happen to anyone. It took the better part of an hour for me to cool down and get enough water back in so I didn't feel like passing out. I don't think I have ever felt that bad after a race.

The time trial was to go over Sugarloaf Mountain. This is the highest point in the Florida peninsula at 312ft. I don't know where they get off calling it a mountain, but it was steep and made for a hard time trial. The climb up the South side was not too bad with a few rollers and stair step ascents. There were a couple of 90 deg corners that would make the descent back down fairly technical. After topping out it is a straight shot down the other side with speeds topping 50 mph. The turn around was almost right at the bottom of the hill so I was not able to build up much momentum for the climb back up. This is the steep part at probably 15% grade. It tops out with a false flat that seems to go on forever then it is back down the other side as hard as you can go. The finish was just up a short hill and I made it about 10 ft past the line before deciding I was done. I finished 5th with time of 21:29 over the 7 miles. The winner put almost a minute on me.

Sundays circuit race was scheduled for 10:15, but they were running late with the start. Most of the delays were because of the start of the Pro 1/2/3 road race getting going. I was really unmotivated to warm up. It was already well into the 90s. I spun around easy for about 45 minutes and lined up to start. My plan was to sit in and follow the wheel of yesterdays winner for the sprint. The pace was fairly easy probably due to the heat. In lap 3 there was a big crash that took out about 10 guys. I just missed it as I was moving up the left side of the field. With just over 2 laps to go there was absolutely no motivation in the field. We were rolling along at a mere 19mph. I was feeling good so I attacked and put a good gap on the field. This was going to be my move, so I gave it everything I had. I was happy to get some help with 1-1/2 laps to go as another rider bridged up to me. He took a couple of strong pulls, but I could tell he did not have as much gas in the tank as I did. It was nice to have him there to give me a chance to catch my breath before the final push. with half a lap to go he was done and could not pull through. He managed to stay on my wheel to the last corner where I found another gear and gaped him. I came across the line in 1st with a 5 second gap on the field. A huge thank you to Ben who seeing me attack went to the front and broke up the chase.

I was really happy to get my first top finish and redeem myself after my mistake on Saturday. I am a couple points shy of the upgrade, but hopefully they will consider my high TT finishes and move me up to Cat 3 for the fall races.