Hittin' the wall

No, not "the wall" metaphorically. During Sunday's race I literally hit "a wall."

After the first three stages in Redlands I was sitting 35th overall, totally excited about attempting Sunday's Sunset loop circuit race. This day of racing had been built up in my mind as what would most likely be the hardest race all spring, and there I was, 10 laps into the 12 lap sucker, still hanging in the front group. Then "whoa!" bam, my race was over. The field in front of me drifted right around a bend while ascending the climb, and in an instant of fatigue driven indecision, I was in the gutter, scraping my shoulder on a stone wall, and then hitting the ground. I wasn't hurt at all, but by the time I checked my bike, put the chain back on, and remounted, the group was out of sight. I road out the last lap and a half with another unlucky soul, who's work was done for the day, to finish around 6 or 7 min down, eliminating any chance I had to move up in the overall.

The worst part of it all is that if I had made a better choice and just feathered my breaks for half a second, the whole thing would have been avoided and I would have still had a legitimate opportunity to test my legs against the big guns once things really got fast.

Overall, I come out of Redlands actually quite pleased with my fitness. I was there in the mix in the other two finishes prior to Sunday's stage but my mind still feels a bit rusty when I'm trying to think through the haze of pain and decide exactly what to do at the end of a race. While I was towards the front, I was still never able to make a significant contribution to Mark or anyone else on the team to help one of us seal the deal. I was just there....a little too far back to be a player in the races and definitely too far back to get a real result. Moral of the California trip: "Get yo head screwed on right, it's racin' season!"

On Deck...

The Redlands Bicycle Classic starts today and goes through Sunday.

Short but tough uphill time trial today..... hmmm, I start in less than 2 hours. Ima get going.

Owie (San Dimas Circuit)

The ninth time up that hill was balls out hard, and just as I finished sprinting over the “cobbles” (aka fake brick textured road) that lap, I could feel them sneaking up on me. Cramps. Nothing debilitating yet, but the tinge was there, right in the end of my quads, slightly above my knees.

Three laps to go…. I finished off my last gel and even bummed a couple gummies from Mark, in an effort to postpone full-on cramps to make it through the remaining hour of racing, but I think by then I had already started to feel the damage of dehydration.

Holding on by the skin of my teeth, I maintained contact with the front group up the steep section for 2 more laps. My cramps progressively worsened until standing up to pedal was basically no longer an option. On the last lap I stood up for a few seconds just to pop over the top of the feed zone hill, and after about 3 pedal strokes just as I was pressing down with my right foot, my quad completely locked up. I’m talking, as contracted as my muscle could possibly be, hyper extending my knee even. That’s never happened to me in a race before, but it reminded me of playing around with an e-stim machine in the athletic training lab….only times a thousand. I actually didn’t even know that could happen to my body. So after some serious concentration, I managed to force my peg leg back into a more natural bent position, but right as I did so, I shifted weight to my left leg only to have the same painful contraction happen to that quad as well.

Needless to say, I didn’t make it over the final climb intact with the lead group, but with a downhill and then only a mile or so of flat, I finished up just about 15 seconds in arrears.

Apart from crashing, those cramps were by far the worst physical pain cycling has ever caused me.

Back at it....

The bike racing season is cranking up once again. Fresh off team camp last week, I'm now out in San Dimas, CA for my first real race of the season. This race started with a hill climb time trial today and ends on Sunday. After a transfer to a host house in Redlands on Sunday night, we'll hang for a couple days before starting another stage race (4 days long) in Redlands on Thursday. I didn't do great in the time trial, but it's still quite a relief to have that tt, and the pain that accompanies it, out of the way. Now for the circuit race tomorrow...