It Begins... Marblehead Circuit Race

First race of 2010. The focus of my training for the year is still 6 months away, but I know that the biggest part of getting shape for cross season happens now. Since the beginning of February I've been averaging close to 200 miles a week, with a healthy mix of threshold, tempo, and endurance work. Since the end of cross season 2009 in December I've logged about 1600 miles on the bike, 1000's of km on the skate skis, hours of trail runs and strength work. Sunday was my chance to see where I'm at in race conditions. As much work as I've done, I've had zero race efforts and zero fast group training rides. The Michael Schott Memorial Race was a Pro-1-2-3 field of 110 racers for 19 laps around a 2.2 mile rolling course on Marblehead Neck, right on the ocean. This was going to be fast and furious and, to be honest, I wasn't sure I was going to be up for the challenge. You see, I don't really consider myself a road racer, mostly because I treat road racing as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Lining up in Pro-1-2-3 open field was just asking to get my ass kicked. But that's exactly why I was there, to get my ass kicked, which in turn would make me stronger. Or in the technical terms that my coach likes to use, increase my CTL (chronic training load). Well this past week certainly did just that. Coming into Sunday I already had 200 miles in my legs for the week, including 56 miles from a 3 hour ride on Saturday. My goal for the race would be to hang on to the main field as long as possible, hopefully making at least half the race without getting dropped. On a rolling course, a stiff breeze coming off the ocean, and the pace being set by the thoroughbreds in the field, this was not going to be easy. 

Normally, I would set a more aggressive goal for myself except for two things. There's a lot of guys who already have twice as many miles in their legs as I do and they specifically train to be winning road races in April. Those were the guys who were going to be setting the pace and those were the guys that I needed to be able to stay with, even if I wasn't going to be taking my turns at the front of the pack. I was secretly hoping that CCB (22 strong in the field of over 100) would put somebody up the road in a break and the rest of the team would  spend the rest of the day blocking. 

It was in the 30's, winds in the 20's, waves crashing off the rocks. I got out of my truck and immediately questioned my decision to do this race.. I looked around at the true road racers, they're easy to pick out, they just have that look. Ask anybody who has been to a road race and they will know exactly what I'm talking about. I felt like the zebra in "Racing Stripes" in a field full of race horses.

This is me. The zebra in the horse race.

I went and got my race number and then found Cathy and Mike Rowell, always the friendliest faces at any event, and it kind of put me at ease. Mike and I stood there shivering, lacking the proper motivation to get in spandex cycling kits with wind chills in the 20's. I forgot my race jersey, which didn't really matter since it was so friggin cold that I decided to go with my jacket for the race anyways. Knee warmers and Mad Alchemy medium embrocation for the legs. Embrocating gives any event a cyclocross vibe :)

The race started and two riders immediately went off the front, the other 106 of us following along at an average 25mph pace up and down the coast of Marblehead Neck. To my surprise I had really good legs and I knew it early on. My goal went from lasting half the race to finishing with the main field. In the third lap, just 10 minutes into the race, I reached down to grab a drink from my water bottle and my hand came back empty. I groped around a bit more searching for the bottle, but it wasn't there (I couldn't look down because I was shoulder to shoulder at 30mph and I thought it would be best to keep my eyes on the cyclist whose wheel was 3 inches in front of my own). Apparently, when I hit a frost heave in the early going my bottle flew out of its cage. I immediately regretted my brilliant decision to go with one bottle for the race as I had to look forward to about another 1:20+ with my heart bouncing between 85% and 95% max with nothing to drink. 

There's nothing quite like riding shoulder to shoulder in a group of 100 riders at high speed. Huge adrenaline, non-stop for the entire time. There was a downhill S-turn that we were taking at 35mph. Any slip up would be devastating. At one point another racer came up on the inside of me to gain himself about 5 feet in the middle of the group. He squeezed in between me and another guy, as he brushed past me his quad hooked my elbow. I narrowly avoided a full jackknife that easily would have brought about 25 cyclists down on top of me. All so he could move up 5 feet. It's moves like this that cause most of the accidents in a race. Moves that make absolutely no sense made by people who have no clue. You see this fairly often in the 4's and 5's, but once you start racing in the master's fields and the 1-2-3 fields, it gets much safer and most of the guys are really solid in a pack. They have to be, otherwise it's just too dangerous for everybody.

With about 4 or 5 laps to go I was hurting but still strong. Out of water for an hour at this point, the pace was super fast, and the group had now chased down about 5 different breakaways. There was one break off the front at this point when Team Fuji (the McCormacks) moved to the front. Everybody knew what was coming next and when we hit the corner leading into the climb the pace pretty much exploded. I hung on yet again and another breakaway was pulled back in. At some point, I think with 2 or 3 laps to go, one more break got away and this time it would stay away. The two in the break would stay clear and beat the rest of the field by about 15 seconds. About a quarter of the field DNF'd, got pulled, or dropped. The rest of the field came across relatively intact with me somewhere in the top half of the field. I definitely achieved as much if not more than I could have hoped for in the first race of the season in a very strong field. Maybe I need to stop thinking of myself as the zebra at a horse race....