Carl Dolan 2013 Race Report

I'll get into plenty of detail below (probably too much for many), so I'll summarize my day here.  This morning I raced in the 20th Annual Carl Dolan Memorial Criterium and placed 7th overall (with a photo finish loss to 6th) and won the intermediate prime, ending up with a couple awesome six packs of root beer.  I would have liked to finish a bit better, but given that 3 months ago I had debilitating back pain, neuropathy and ended up having a third back surgery, racing at all seems like quite the victory.  I took a video of the race with my Contour Roam camera and used a cute tool to combine it with trajectory data (speed, heart rate, power):

http://suffervision.appspot.com/v/437001

The video is of the full race, most of which is pretty boring, but I'll reference a couple of exciting points such as the sprint finish.

Training Post Surgery

Three days after surgery I got on my indoor trainer and lightly spun my legs.  With my loss of muscle strength (dorsiflexion specifically) in my right foot, many simple activities such as walking, while doable,  required extra mental attention.  In contrast, clipped in to my bike, I felt very normal.  Doing a daily spin on my trainer became a nice respite that I looked forward to every day.  My wife and doctor were vehemently opposed to riding outside for the first 6 weeks, so I ended up riding my trainer every day for about 6 weeks.  At first I only did 30 minutes, but by 6 weeks I had worked up the duration and intensity to close to my pre-injury level.  Once I was able to ride outside 6 weeks after surgery, I continued riding 8-10 hours per week and feel like my form might even be ahead of where I was at last year at the same point in the year.  Apart from some competitive group rides, Carl Dolan was going to be my first real post surgery test of fitness.  

"Cleaning" the Bike: A Sticky Situation

Every good racer knows that you shouldn't mess around with your equipment too much right before a race at the risk of screwing something up.  My typical routine for races is to clean and setup my bike a couple days ahead of time and make sure it seems right during a short test ride or two the day before.  I had done exactly that on Thursday night to make my bike race ready, cleaning the bike, lubing it up, removing the flashing tail light, adding latex tubes, etc.  I short ride on Friday confirmed that the bike was fine.  As I was getting ready to put my bike in the car on Saturday night I noticed the rear derailleur and chain were a bit dirty and thought I would quickly clean them with a spray degreaser.  So I take the bike out to the front yard and start spraying.  After a little while of spraying I start to wonder why it is foaming so much and why the usual degreasing effect is not happening.  I look down and realize I'm not spraying the degreaser, I'm spraying a similar shaped can of 3M glue that I use for gluing my number to my jersey for TTs!!  I had accidentally laid it out when I was organizing my equipment and guess I accidentally picked up the similarly shaped spray can.  Rarely have I felt so foolish, which is really saying something!  I ran back inside the house and found the can of degreaser and spent the next 30 minutes applying all sorts of cleaners to the chain, cassette and derailleurs.  I think in the end I managed to get everything nice and clean and back to its non-glue state, but not after quite a bit of panic.

Race Morning, Checkin, Warmup

The race is at an office park loop about 15 minutes from home, so traveling to the race was simple.  After helping make breakfast for my kids, I got dressed in my race gear and headed off at about 7:30 am to drive over to the race.  The morning was a bit chilly, so this meant wearing arm and leg warmers, etc.  As predicted, the commute was simple.  I parked, registered and got myself ready to ride in short order.  I started my warmup at about the same time that the juniors started, 8 am, doing some easy laps in the opposite direction as the race.

Start and the First Few Laps
The start of the race was uneventful.  We were given some instructions by a referee and then started rolling.  My main worry was to not get myself into any trouble and try to stay safe for the first few laps.  For each of the first couple laps, I ended up finding myself toward the front at the climb back up to the finish line and briefly discussed pushing the pace a bit with some other riders.  In the end, that wasn't to be, instead the race ended up yo-yo-ing at high speeds for one stretch and then slowing down dramatically as we headed into a head wind and no one seemed willing to pull.

Almost Going Down (~14:50 in video)
A big fear in a race like this is crashing.  As a beginner Cat 5 racer, we are all at risk from both our own ineptitude and the ineptitude of the other riders.  Being cautious and riding well yourself certainly helps your chances of avoiding a crash, but someone can still take you out.  I know that my skills are by no means elite with regard to group riding etiquette, but I've made an effort to educate myself and try to regularly do group rides, so hopefully I'm not too high of a risk.  During what seemed like it should be an uneventful part of the race, I suddenly feel my back wheel getting pushed hard right and then hear a grinding sound behind me.  I'm not 100% sure what happened, but I believe a guy behind me overlapped his front wheel with my back and saved himself by clipping out and putting his cleat down.  In the end no one ended up falling and after the race the guy came up and apologized.  Looking at the video, I'm out in front and don't seem to be weaving or anything, so I don't think I did anything wrong.

Winning the Prime (~23 minutes in the video)

Lap 4 was a "prime" lap; they ring a bell at the beginning of the lap and whoever crosses the finish line first at the next lap wins a prize.  I was feeling pretty good and thought I might as well go after the prime.  I saw an opportunity as the field slowed a little after the corner and sprinted off the front up the long shallow climb to the finish line.  After a while, I checked and saw that I still had one guy on my wheel.  I figured I wasn't going to drop him and I didn't want to just lead him out, so I managed to let him go by and still hold his wheel.  At that point he started weaving all over the road, presumably trying to shake me that way.  As we approached the line, he seemed to give up a bit and I came by him to take the prime.  After doing it, I realized I was pretty spent and that it had been a bigger effort than I intended, but once I started trying for it I wasn't willing to give up on getting the prime.  Right after the prime, it looked like a group of about half a dozen of us had a bit of a gap.  A couple guys tried to encourage the group to work together, but in the end we didn't and just got swallowed back up.  I was ready to take it easy for the next few laps, hoping that going for the prime hadn't used up too much to still contest the finish.

Final Sprint (starting roughly time 48:00 in the video)
A race like this is almost always won in a field sprint and I was planning on giving the sprint a try.  I decided that my best bet was to try to follow the guy who had almost won the prime since he was the only other guy I knew was likely to be strong.  I managed to be in roughly the top 10-15 around the corner and then tried to stay with my chosen guy.  My field surfing skills clearly could use some work; I found myself in the wind instead of just drafting and also almost got run into the curb on the left.  I also seem to have chosen poorly, my guy blew up 300 meters or so from the finish and I left myself a bit high and dry without a wheel to follow.  I managed to make up a little ground, but the top three were no where close.  I tried to drive hard to the line and thought I might have clipped the 6th place guy at the line, but I guess I didn't.  We ended up with the same time, but he got the higher place.

Mmm, Cupcakes, Root Beer
After putting my bike back in my car, I loitered around the finish, getting myself coffee and a cupcake and waiting for them to announce the results.  In 20 minutes or so, they announced the top 10 results, took some pictures and that was it.  I walked up to the announcer after and asked about the prime.  The story seemed a bit confused; he thought that maybe they had decided not to do the prime, but a number of fellow racers confirmed hearing the bell and someone say "prime lap".  The organizers were super nice and started trying to give me various things, in the end offering a bunch of beer.  I suggested the 6 pack of root beer instead (I'm not a huge beer fan) and he was more than generous, foisting both 6 packs they had on me.  They made for some great post race snacks at home!