2008 Race Report #15: Evanston Pro Race
Race Report #15: Superweek Stage 12, Evanston, IL, Sunday, July 20. Category: Pro 1/2. Weather: 87 degrees, light winds. Course: flat, 0.8 miles/lap, 6 corners, Distance, 70 laps, 100 kilometers. Average speed 30.4 mph, Average pulse 181.
I had intended to fire up the RV about a week before our annual trek up north, but got busy and of course ended up doing it the night before. I was pleasantly surprised that it started immediately: that is, immediately after about 45 minutes of sweating and cursing as I lay wedged underneath the front end of the vehicle, with a cement parking block neatly wedged directly under the center of my back, arching it into painful contortions I as I lifted the 3 heavy batteries in place and attached the leads.
The life of Riley: The generator fired right up as well, as did the A/C, refrigerator, microwave, TV and stereo. I was pleasantly surprised that I had left myself ¾ tank of gas last year at those super cheap $3.25 prices, and as I tooled out of storage with 10,000 lbs of 1987’s finest beneath me burning gas at 6 mpg, I felt I was living the life of Riley.
The Tribulations of Job: However, it is never quite that easy with the RV – from tires, to A/C to the generator to the brakes and exhaust the vehicle has never made things quite that easy. After I brought it home and began loading I also began filling the 100 gallon freshwater tank – but it leaked like a sieve and turning on the water pump only made things worse. Late that night, and then again the next morning I crawled underneath the 20 year old rusting undercarriage to try and determine the root cause of the issue, but merely succeeded in getting rusty water splashed in my eyes that took the better part of the night to clear.
By late morning the day of the Evanston race I threw in the towel and decided we’d go without running water for the shower, sink and kitchen. This was to be the last ride of the RV and I was determined to make the most of it so loaded up everything I could think of.
Until midnight I was running back and forth to the RV with blankets, groceries, bug spray, music, movies, pillows, the grill and everything you’d bring if you were moving and then the same in the morning. I didn’t properly hydrate in the hot humid weather and my lower back began to spasm – most likely a combo of the time arched under the RV, carrying lots of heavy objects cantilevered out in front of me, improper hydration and not very much rest. Honestly, there probably couldn’t have been worse preparation for the Evanston race. In theory I should have been quietly hydrating with my legs up all day… That, and I had already challenge the Roadie Gods….
Tribulations of Job: So, I guess I asked for it. In a previous post I challenged the roadies to “keep a fast pace, shake and bake me, form breakways and single file paces.” So, of course so what else should I expect other than that they should answer – punatively of course. Over the next week I suffered the lash of their whips, their accels, their shake-n-bake tactics desperately holding onto wheels and hoping for the pressure to be relieved, for air to refill my lungs, for the burning asphyxiating pain to leave my legs. They showed little mercy…
I just described Evanston – a relentless onslaught by the Pro teams on the front of the Peleton. The race started fast and never slowed down. With 6 fairly smooth corners, the course is actually pretty decent for me – except for the one achilles heel that I was to rediscover over the coming days in several races: my criterium kryptonite comes in the form of a long, slightly uphill straightaway with a headwind.
Now that I’m more aware of my strengths, this just makes sense. A small hill? I can power over that and leverage my strengths. Straightaways between 200 and 400m? Perfect again – short sprints, followed by a lot of coasting. I’m quite good at coasting (a natural corollary to my wheelsucking abilities). However, a tight corner followed by a really long straightaway requires pedaling well beyond my little tiny strength of 6 – 10 seconds of power: on each finish stretch at Evanston I found myself going well beyond my aerobic threshold and creating lactic acid on the 45 second haul up the long, slightly uphill finish stretch with winds swirling around me.
“Hot Goosebumps” – that’s what I began to feel as things stretched out I began to enter that oxygen deprived, lactic acid filled world that haunts my dreams – a place of sheer agony and repeated lies to my body – “you can quit next lap – just one more lap”. As my body processed less and less oxygen my legs experienced that ugly symptom of ‘hot chills’ where the leg felt half asleep and as blood continued to course through the veins it would feel hot despite showing goose bumps on the outside.
I continued my lies and internal mantra: “just make it 10 laps.” Then 20, then 30, then halfway to 35, then 40, then 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, then 50, and then, for the next set of lies, the all consuming goal was to make it to lap 60 (out of 70 laps).
Usually by this point in a given race, I can stop lying and realize I’ll make it to the end, and usually my mind set re-enters the proactive zone where I begin planning my attack for the final laps. But, like Downer Avenue last year, these thoughts were given no oxygen to formulate and instead I merely followed the wheel ahead, using my strengths effectively on corners one through five, and then hanging on for dear life each time down the long, bumpy, slightly uphill, single file finish stretch.
Mid-race I had moved to the middle of the 160 rider field – maybe 60th place or so. With about 30 laps to go after a particularly hard acceleration I was surprised to find only a dozen riders behind me or so – nearly half of this field of top category riders and professionals from around the country and the world had been dropped.
I remained even more dedicated to finishing and tried to move up again. I stayed in the middle front for another 5 laps but the race remained stretched out, single file and I was losing position. Just then a split occurred on the long finish stretch and suddenly I was bridging a fairly decent gap. I started faltering and riders swarmed by attempting to reconnect. It all broke up into confusion and a couple riders made it across but I found myself in a group of 10 that fell off the back and then disintegrated as we crossed the line with 12 laps to go.
I had not yet made my most recent goal of lap 60 (10 to go) so I continued riding, alone, as fast as I could go. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was averaging about 24 mph all by myself – that’s as fast as I can ever remember riding alone – and then I decided to check average speed so far – 30.4 mph – the fastest, ever, in a race that I’ve been in.
(Yes, roadies, I have a low VO2 and my typical wattage at my aerobic threshold is probably about 240-260 watts – no where near your 300, 330, or even 400 watts. That ‘book of matches’ you talk about burning during the race? If you flip over the creased white cardboard cover of my matchbook, you’ll find one lonely match – just one. Fortunately it’s got a little extra )
So even at my max I was riding over 6 mph slower than the field. That’s the advantage of the draft and the distinction of roadie vs. sprinter. I made it a couple laps alone, and then, just at 60 laps I was pulled from the race by the referees and then a lone Columbian came screaming past – riding 31 mph all by himself. As I pulled off, lapped, I cursed the roadie gods for that incomprehensible ability to ride that fast for more than 8 seconds.
The life of Riley: I piled into the air conditioned RV and headed off the to beach in Sheboygan for 4 fun and sun filled days at the beach...