Hood River Crit - 4/1

Let’s see, another race…. Before I start my report, let me dig into my bucket of excuses and pull something out… Hmm… not that one, I used it last time…. no, no, ahhhh, here’s one I haven’t used in a while… I went to a spinning class on Wednesday evening and did some sprint intervals. Not only that, but when I woke up Thursday, I noticed my thighs hurt as I walked down the stairs to make some breakfast… So, keep this in mind when reading the report below…

Okay, I showed up nice and early in Hood River and decided to sign up for both the 4/5 and 3/4 races. They’re back to back, but I figured the 3/4 would be good training. I circled around the track for a while to warm up and actually felt pretty good. About 30 of us lined up. It was a pretty good showing for the first one of these, but the weather was good, so I kind of expected it. This was a 25 minute race and from the start we were going pretty hard. I found myself up near the front for the first half of the race and my legs were beginning to hurt (please reference my excuse above). I was clearly taking too much wind, so I dropped back a ways and found a big ’sprinter’ guy to shelter behind. We shot around the course pretty uneventfully until we hit the second corner heading into the wind with 3 laps to go. I was still sheltering and trying to bring my heart rate down when I saw and heard plastic/aluminum hitting the ground about 200 feet past the corner. I just avoided the crash and about 5 of us hit the throttle as soon as we got by. The whole group was single file for the next 2 and a half laps. About half way around the last lap I was sitting third wheel going into the wind. The two guys ahead of me were starting to slow down so I figured it was time to go as I’m no sprinter.. When I hit the next turn I had a couple hundred feet on the pack with two guys chasing. Rounding the last turn I had about 100 yards on the pack but the chasers were catching me. That finishing straight is long and I was maxed out, I could feel my legs starting to get heavy and slow. Around 150 yards to the finish, the first guy started to come by me. I stood up to sprint, but there was nothing left… 50 yards later the second guy past me. I ended up 3rd… So, I finished the lap to cool down a bit and then lined up for the 3/4 race…

My strategy for this one was to simply hold on. We did 20 laps (about 45 minutes) and the first four were brutal. I was barely hanging on and considered pulling out every time we hit the start/finish line. I managed to talk myself into staying in since it’s good training… I started feeling better after the River City guys finally got someone off the front and then slowed everyone down to a more manageable 24mph. Nothing exciting in this race except that some guys need to learn not to cut up the inside when lining up for a 90 degree turn at 30. Several of us had to dodge cones exitting the turn because these idiots couldn’t keep from swinging wide after cutting up underneath. I’ll have to start just riding my line and if they hit the curb, so be it. Anyway, I ended up 10th in the field sprint and 14th overall.

I’ll probably do this race again next week if it’s not raining and then the 4/5’s at Kings Valley. Oh, semi-interesting stats from my heart rate monitor… total time 1 hour 22 minutes (this included about 15 minutes of standing around where I forgot to turn off the HRM), average heart rate = 152 (about 83% of max), max heart rate = 178 (about 97% of max). I may have my max heart rate calculated a bit low, but it sure hurt.  :)