Ride Empowered Criterium Training Series/Off-site meetings

I knew today was going to be one of those days as I had spent most of my morning and lunch telecommuting from my off-site “B” office.  Despite the name, the “B” office is rather close, it's across the hall from my main office in the area known as my bathroom, and consisted of me, sitting there with my ipad, cursing everything I've ingested in the last 48hrs including even small things like Altoids or water.  Yes, it was going to be one of those days.  So as most of the cat 5 team now knows, I'm absolutely horrible at warming up for races so I decided to ride the ten or so miles to the race.  I find myself riding there in this hot muggy air, blasting Elite Force's latest tunes, absolutely starving, shoving my face with powerbars the same way Charlie Sheen probably does with narcotics.  And despite all this I'm riding there at a speed that could be slightly misconstrued as a moving track stand.  It would have made the OJ Simpson thing look like a high-speed chase.  Needless to say, I was not feeling this.  I arrive at the venue and was relieved to see only a few people rolling around on carbon hoops.  I didn't realize people we're going to be tapering, peaking, and pulling out all the stops this race.  If I had know that I would have busted out the shiv with the drop bars.  Not the Specialized bike, an actual shiv.....I used to live in Brooklyn........it's how we do crits back there.  Ok, yeah maybe I'm just bitter because my carbon hoops are getting de-pringled, although next week I may break out the old Rev-X wheelset for laughs.  After the race I'll use them to dice up some lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes for a nice post race salad.  After I reg and Trevor Johnston pokes me no less than SEVEN times while pinning on my number, in a stroke of genius I decide that the 45mins before my race would be the perfect time to adjust my left cleat that has been  giving me problem.  So I'm sitting there with my multi-tool very gleefully wrenching away happy that I will finally be able to pedal with both legs and then Chuck Hutcheson rolls up.  If you don't follow me or Chuck on strava, you may have missed a hilarious little back and forth that happened when I gave him crap for posting a 1 sec ride, we've all done that one before haven't we.  It culminated in me showing up to the Monday ride hoping not to get punched in the mouth, which I didn't but now I will probably get heckled by him for the rest of my life.  Chuck looks at me, then looks at my cleat and then back at me and exclaims “Really?!  Is right before a race really the best time to be doing that.”  In a perfect world I would have stated that riders in the pro-tour are always getting their cleats adjusted WHILE on their bikes in the middle of a race by the team mechanic.  But instead I just looked at the ground all dejected and said “no.”  Ah but here's the clincher, immediately after that CH noticed his seat wasn't straight and had to borrow my multi-tool to fix it right before a race.  That's what we call HECKLE KARMA.  And yes, my cleat is dialed now and it feels like I'm riding in bunny slippers not 6” stiletto heels............not that I know what that’s.......nevermind.  Meanwhile Trevor's tire decides to flat 2mins before the start.  And while this is going on, Craig explains to us that he is not racing and only there to watch and for demoralizing support.  This meant that instead of me having a 33% chance of having to work and a 66% chance of tail gunning it at the back while looking pretty, I now have a 100% chance of having to gut myself because Trevor is stronger and our best bet is for me to try to cover everything so he can save his strength. 

So my woefully unwarmed up butt lines up for the start and I do my usual drop my chain five seconds before the gun goes off get it back on and wipe the grease off turning my white socks grey routine.  And boom we are off, at the slowest pace ever.  Seriously we were doing a whopping 17mph at the first corner.  First two laps are chill and then chaos breaks out as the field gets shatter and split into multiple parts.  I don't know what happened.  I was close to the front for two laps then on the third I drifted back to take a breather, maybe smoke a cigarette and read the newspaper.  While I was attempting to warm up and stretch a break was formed.  This break was fast, fast to the point that half the breakaway riders DNFed and the remainder lapped the field(fast break, short course).  We ended up chasing for days.  I actually spent a fair amount of time on the front helping.  At one point I had just finished doing a pull on the up wind section and was drifting to the back to tuck back in when I feel a hand smack my butt and I hear our mentor for the race yell “Get you @$$ up there and take a pull.”  So begrudgingly I trodded back up to the front, took another pull, chicken winging the whole time trying to get someone to help form a decent paceline and give me a break.  The highlight of the race was about 20mins in.  Myself, a guy I can't remember, and another guy I can't remember in a Team City Lyons Jersey that I will now refer to as “The Lion of Carmichael” were up in the front on the finishing straight.  As we pass the finish line someone is blocking the lap card and all we can hear is  “Last Lap...one more to go.”  It was funny because as soon as we heard that the three of us looked at each other, at our garmins then back at each other and exclaimed "I thought this was a 45min race?!?!" So we immediately gunned it, strung the field out, we were countering each others moves, bounced it up to 30mph on the back straight.  I'm yelling at Trevor to latch on to my wheel for the sprint and he's looking at me with this look of pure “what the heckness.”  It was priceless.  So I put my head down, I'm sitting in second position I cut the corner hard fast (a few people mentioned they had no clue how I was going that fast through that corner............hehe course recon last week) while the Lyon of Carmichael goes wide and the third guy is slotted int the middle.  We have a gap on the pack and we just drag race it to the line, with me coming in third on the bunch sprint there.  We sat up, congratulated each other, watched the rest of the riders come by all tired and what not.  We thought they were cooling down. Then after about a lap. Chuck, our mentor for the race rolls, up and says "Are you guys done racing?" We reply that they had called last lap, we thought it was supposed to be 45mins but guess it was only 25 etc etc.  It was at that moment we all look to the left to see the pack way in the distance just drilling it.  Our hearts sink like when you see your recent ex dating your best friend.  We drilled it for laps trying to catching up to them, but to no avail.  Chuck even tries to tow me back up and I am just shot to pieces.  I'm pretty sure the whole time inside he was saying “suuucccckkkkker.”  I probably had the strength to make it up there, but just not the motivation.  In the end we ended up taking a free lap and they let us rejoin the group.  The last half of the race was pretty much a few of us just taking pulls.  I was feeling stronger and faster as the race went on.  Between Trevor and I, we made sure that if anyone attacked a Rio was near by.  Did a pretty good job of making the race hard-esque (I don't believe they allow me to use the term hard in referring to a cat 5 race).  And it ended exactly like it had twenty minutes earlier with a few of us gapping off the front on the final corner and sprinting again and me getting third in the bunch, Trevor got first putting him at 5th and me at 7th.  Awesome kudos to Trevor aka T-Pain for his massive attacks.

Huge thanks going to Heather for putting on this race series and all the volunteers that were out there yesterday!

*I realize I am now the mystical cornering fairy of doom.  If you are in front of me on the final corner, you will scrap you pedal.  Loss count how many times I saw this happen.