Smith Dairy Milk Race

Not my best race, but not my worst race, either. My legs were tired from racing Monday and Tuesday, riding hard Thursday, and not getting to ride Friday or Saturday. Add in softball on Friday, and both quads were nursing strains again. To my surprise, however, they felt fantastic the first lap. That contributed to my trademarked stupidity. I chased an early attack because I like chasing. I threw in an attack to see who was willing to work. I pulled because, well, I'm too stupid to stay off the front.

In the second lap, when the attack happened on the worst of the uphills, I was finally at the back of the our field of 10, taking a breather. I worked through riders, caught up to Samantha House, but then realized I didn't have the legs to get up to her teammate Mary Ellen Bailey and the Godspeed woman who were probably only 20 feet away. I thought Sam was going to block, let them go; then she said something like, "We've got a good gap opened up," and I thought, "Wait, she's willing to work with me, so we'll be a break of 4."

However, I had used my energy to work through the field on the uphill, and I had nothing more until I recovered. Sam finished the bridge while I pondered my options. Basic stupidity seemed the answer: I thought, "I'll rest for just a minute, then start the chase again." Nope, no sprint, but decent speed. I wasn't catching them, but they weren't opening a bigger gap. I looked back, saw someone behind me, and figured out by the blue jersey it was Kelly. We had encouraged Kelly to race with us. I thought, "Well, I can still catch them, keep going." But eventually common sense kicked in, and I realized I couldn't. I sat up, let Kelly catch me, and then told her we could work together, get them. Kelly did great--good, solid pulls. I think I matched them pretty well, but I didn’t have the juice to kick it up that notch we really needed. Kelly then informed me the field was catching us. I looked back. I looked back a little later, realized we weren't going to make it, and advised her to ease up, let them catch us.

From then on, it seemed that the SHC women did an awful lot of the work. Wendy was determined to catch the breakaway. She kept encouraging us. I realized it was just too much--we needed all 6 of us working hard to close the gap. I wanted to organize us, and slow the pace so all of us had energy for a sprint, but by then Amy was riding hard. I didn't want to chase her down just to tell her we should slow down. She figured it out and slowed; yet somehow we still kept working hard.

There were 6 of us going into the final turn, with Wendy up front and me right behind. My plan was to attack into that turn, and race up that gentle uphill to the finish. Halfway up, my momentum faltered, and my speed dropped. Argh! I didn't have quite the energy left I thought I did. That early attack, just for fun, didn't seem quite so fun now. I heard several folks shouting for the Orrville rider, Loreena, and I was afraid to look back to see how close she was. I looked back anyway, saw I had only about 20 feet on the field. Though I felt I had nothing more to give, I convinced myself to shift two more gears, hold the same cadence. That did it. Kelly did great, passing several people to come in right behind me. Kelly did wonderfully in her first race, especially since Wendy, Amy, and I didn't do the best job of showing her how to run a smart race. I'm hoping we can be better role models next time. Oh, and we finished 40 seconds back from the winner. I sure wish I had dug a little deeper when the break happened. I realize, in hindsight, if I had blown up as I thought I was about to, I could have let the pack swallow me up, and I could have communicated with the team, tried to slow the pace long enough to recover. That said, I still had a lot of fun, and had a great workout.

I'd like to thank Cindy, her husband Jim, their daughter Jennifer, grandson Caleb, and young Matthew for coming out to watch me.

Hey, this was so much more fun this year than last. I had a bunch of teammates with me that made the time and that one hill go so much faster. I still need to learn, that I don't have to pull so hard, so much. It was a beautiful day, and a really nice bunch of women to race with. Shari and Amy were great to play with, and Kelly, even though she isn't on the team, helped too. Looking forward to more races with my teammates.

Overall today was a good day, when you compare it to last year. Last years event saw me getting blown off the back after the first turn. This year would be a different story. The 4/5 field had more than 50 riders. I was surprised at how few incidents there were.

Starting off the race near the front just getting settled, making sure nobody got off the front. After the second turn I must have been feeling frisky because I attacked. They responded quickly, as I never really got more then about 50m on the field. When I saw how close they were I backed off and slid back in the pack to recover. As we rounded the left hand turn and started to approach the only real climb of the course I had to wonder if my jump was such a good idea as it was taking a really long time to recover from it. I lost a few places going up it the first time but, not too bad, pretty good in fact for a sprinter. Around the next turn one guy clipped out as he went to stand and skidded all the way across the road.

The second lap saw nothing of real importantance just some minor softening of legs. The third lap the pace picked up a little bit. A few people started to get dropped after the first turn. Going into the climb I moved up bit to be sure to stay connected. In hind sight I should have forced my way towards the front right here, instead I slid up where I could ever so gently. The next to last road I figured was long enough and fast enough the a decent descender could move up. Unfortunately the field spread out across the entire road and left no gaps whatsoever for anyone to move up. A couple of guys got tangled up, went down, but that still didn't create any gaps. A couple of cars coming towards us created some small holes so I was able to move up a couple of spots but not many. After the final turn the sprint begins and I move up a number of spots. However I was too far back to gain anything of significance.

I've gotta work on that head-bob.

Five laps and each lap had a $25 prime.

In truth, we weren't off the front as long as Will says, maybe three miles total. The solo guy was going for a lap prime and I was simply trying to liven things up when I realized the whole field was blocking and I was committed to the chase. I was still about ten seconds back when he got the prime. I didn't want to completely kill myself on the second lap but in hindsite it would have been my only chance to do something. At least I would have had a chance to get my entry fee back. After the prime he was cooked but I coaxed him along enough to make it appear that we were still working on staying away.

Another perfect day for racing. Temps in the upper 60s, light winds, and plenty of sun. I was mostly along for the ride today. I felt a lot better than yesterday, but the field was so deep and strong I never had the legs to do much.

Tris Hopkins deserves a lot of credit for his win today. He was marked heavily by the field. Every time he twitched the field was all over him. He tried everything: attack from the front, attack from the back, counter-attack his own attacks. He must have jumped 20 times in the first 2 laps. He finally got a clean three man break with 2.5 laps to go by simply powering away from the field when everyone was red-lined.

Before Tris got away Larry made a really nice bridge up to a solo break. Larry hit "head-bob" intensity hovering just 30 feet off the field and I thought he was coming back for sure. But he kept digging and he slowly pulled away to join the other rider. It took a few miles to make the capture and then the two of them held off the field for another 3 or 4 miles. It was a really gutsy move and almost paid off as Torelli tried to jump up. But the field kept marking Torelli and eventually the counter attacks brought the break back.

I also have to give a lot of credit to Stark Velo for being the team that worked the hardest to chase Tris's break. John and Scott did a lot of work the last two laps and are riding really strong right now - look out for them in the stage race.