I’m Back

I returned from El Salvador early this morning, and I will have a lot to say about the trip, but I need to meditate on some of the details of this emotional trip a little longer before I’m ready to post anything coherent.  I did keep a journal while I was there, even after some very, very long days, so I am not in any danger of forgetting things, not that anything that happened was even close to being forgettable.  In the meantime, I’d like to file the first race report of the season, and let me tell you: it’s a good one.

I arrived home at about 1 o’clock this morning, and got to sleep around 2, which of course means I instantly lost an hour when 2 became 3 because of the daylight savings time switch.  Shortly after I feel asleep, Muttboy had one of his chasing and barking dreams, which woke me up, so I had to wake him up to make him shut up.  In other words, when my alarm went off at 7, I was very, very tired and thought seriously about shutting it off and going back to sleep.  I had talked too much on the trip about my plans to race Sunday morning after we returned to do that, though, and I knew I couldn’t face the scorn and ridicule of the group if I didn’t get up.  So I got up and got ready to race.

The temperatures down in El Salvador averaged around 90 degrees or so during the day, so when I saw the thermometer showing only 29, I was not thrilled, and the howling wind gusts of 40 miles per hour were not doing much for my state of mind, either.  Nevertheless, I rode over to the race course, pinned on my number, and rolled out for a full fifteen minutes of warmup.

Many of the usual guys from last summer’s Tuesday Night Worlds were there, as well as a lot of New York riders.  Counting me, our team had four riders in the race, one of whom had finished fifth last week when I didn’t race.  As I looked around, I felt a little strange–somewhat nervous, but somewhat, well, elsewhere, as if I were not entirely in my body.  I knew that feeling would change once we started and had to deal with the horrible wind gusts that, because of the way the hills around the course lie, were headwinds for at least three-quarters of the course.

The whistle blew and Gene, racing for DC, sprinted away, taking the first corner at full speed and a good ten meters ahead of the rest of us.  We watched him tear down the hill and into the distance, thinking, “Well, if he wants to ride all alone into that wind, let him.”  A couple of guys looked like they were going to chase, but couldn’t quite seem to make up their minds, so they sort of made feeble little breakaway motions.

I was determined not to do anything stupid or exhausting, so I stayed near the front, but always about four back.  Whenever it looked like I might have to take a turn pulling into the wind, I drifted back to let someone else do the honors.  The first couple of laps passed this way, and I began to feel that I might not actually die on the course.  I felt relaxed and easy, which is a nice way to feel in a race.

Soon a few guys organized themselves enough to chase down Gene, one of them being Chuck, one of my teammates.  This was a big relief in some ways: I did not want to feel like I had to chase down a break, and if Chuck was up ahead, then I was morally obligated to perform blocking duties.  John rolled up beside me, and we began our tactical work at once.  We sat at the front and kept the pace calm.  When someone, usually one of the six or seven DKNY riders, attacked, we would follow.  We annoyed a lot of guys today, as they would pull over, expecting us to pull through and keep the chase going, only to find us staying behind them.  “I’ve got a guy up ahead,” I told them with a grin.  What could they say to that?  According to the rules of bike racing, I was doing exactly what they would have done.

Despite our efforts, the pack was gradually catching up with the breakaway group.  The largest gap was officially 40 seconds, but one lap later it was down to 20.  When I saw this happening, I dropped back a little to watch the other racers.  The best tactics call for a counterattack as soon as a break gets caught by the field, so I was surveying the others, thinking about tapping a couple to jump with me.  We swallowed the break, except for Gene, who stubbornly stayed about thirty or forty meters ahead of us.  Instantly Pawling made a counter, which was what I was expecting from this tactically savvy team.  I went with them and pulled us past Gene, who jumped in to work some more.

We soon had six guys in a small break of about forty meters, and we were increasing the gap.  Another guy bridged, bringing our total up to seven racers, which would make the final sprint interesting–points go only to the top six, so someone would get left out.  At about four laps to go, Sam launched a huge attack and bridged to the group.  Now we were eight.  As I drifted to the back of the break after pulling, I speculated about the group; I knew I could outsprint at least three of them, and probably four or five.  It looked good.

At At two laps to go Zack from Pawling and Gene launched a sort of attack and were hanging off the front by about one or two seconds–not much, but a gap of a two or three bike lengths.  At the same time, I noticed that the main pack was starting to gain on us.  I shouted to the group to hammer, and we gained back maybe a second on the pack.  When the bell rang for the final lap, I turned to look as we started down the hill.  The pack was only ten or fifteen seconds back, so I shouted again.  We gained a little time, with Zack and Gene still battling a little of the front, about three or four bike lengths ahead.  Here I made the only tactical blunder of an otherwise perfectly intelligent race.  I should have jumped to bridge the gap the these guys, but instead, I sat at the back, in eighth place, hoping Jay, who was sitting in third, would bridge.

We approached the final hill, and I waited patiently.  One of the businesses in the industrial park where the crit is held had a large landscape boulder beside the driveway, and we use that as the starting line for our sprints.  As soon as Jay passed it, I checked my gearing, decided it was just right and opened the throttle as far as it would go.

It was the best sprint of my life.

I screamed past the group, hearing Jay shout “What the hell?” as I flew past him as if he were not moving at all.  I was gaining on the two leaders when I ran out of race course and passed the line in a very fast third place finish.  Afterwards, Justin, a teammate who raced earlier with the Cat 5s, came up to me laughing, saying he had never seen anyone sprint with such a huge grin on his face.

It was a great way to start the season, but now I’m completely exhausted.  I’m very excited about next week, though.  It’s going to be a great race.