May 02, 2011 at 10:22 AM
This past weekend while the majority of the team was doing battle in Prospect Park or training on the hills of Rockland/Rockleigh counties, I was in Southern Vermont for a first-year 2-day stage race called The Tour of the Dragons. I was the only Kissena flying blue and orange, although we had clubmate Alan Atwood manning timing command central on Sunday. I signed up for the 35+ race.
The action was nearly over, before it started. For breakfast, I was eating a McGriddle only to bite into something so acrid, so foul tasting that my mind immediately turned to: "what the hell is the poison control number?" My ED nurse instincts kick in and I start running through possibilities. Should I induce vomiting? Should I get an ECG, my heart is pounding, my stomach feels sick. What does counter-top cleaner taste like? What does it do to my blood's Ph? Alkalosis? Do I need oxygen? The next few hours I just "monitored" myself, continuing with the routine. My stomach did feel upset, my heart was pounding, but was it psychosomatic, or something real. I know I swallowed something real bad, but maybe my body would process it without drama? Trying to put the incident out of my head, I registered for the race, picked up great freebies (inner tubes, tire irons, free Clif bar gels) and set up the bike under cover of a lift back tailgait.
The race started early Saturday morning with an 11-mile hilly (but not so hilly that full TT rigs didn't have an advantage) time trial. A beautifully hard course, made all the more painful by 43 degree temperatures and rain. Weather.com forecasters predicted 10% chance of rain, and I predict there's a 95% chance those guys don't know what they're talking about. Okay, so I was grumpy, and wet and cold. Most TT's as part of stage races on the East Coast have been in the 18 minute range, but this one saw winners go for around 26 minutes and losers like myself clocking in 30+ minutes. True to form, the only guy I beat in the TT went off course up a hill and had to double back.
After the wife and I enjoyed a little brunch and Bennington shops browsing (where we discovered an AMAZING bakery, with cupcakes to die for), the sky started to clear as the action heated up during the afternoon's criteriums. Despite my relative lack of fitness and power/weight issues, my steady diet of midwest criterium racing gave me confidence that I could be up there with the big guns. The course was a classic 1k, 4-corner crit, with an out of the saddle big-ring bump after turn one, a screamingly fast right handed descending turn 3 and a nice wide boulevard home-stretch. I was right at home. During introductions race announcer Richard Fries did his best to put some fear into us mere mortals. "5-time US Pro Champion, Frank McCormack!" "Former Team Saturn pro Chris Fisher!" "Current national champion blah blah bluh, blah, blah."
No matter. I was ready. Early laps, I take a turn at the front to check out the tricky turns at race speed (to those who are new-ish to crits, do as I say, not as I do, don't leave this vital step to crit racing until the actual race begins). Feeling comfortable I settle backwards into the top 5. Two riders launch off the front (not Fisher or McCormack) and are never to be seen again. Various riders go to the front in efforts to bridge/chase, but nothing doing. I see McCormack roll to the front, and I think, "Oh, shit, this is going to hurt." And it did, like a muhtha-fucka. I thought I was going to die. For those of you who don't know, Frank McCormack was quite literally one of the best racers in the world--across multiple disciplines. Cyclocross, crits, road races. A big guy who never met a big ring that was big enough.
This short master's race was quickly coming to end. There was some field-mixing madness where I rolled up to Fischer and asked, "what are we doing, letting them go, or racing with them?" The officials wanted us to race separately, but I wasn't going to get caught out because I'm a rule follower only, so I asked one of the most experienced guys in our group and followed his lead. Unfortunately there were crashes and other guys who were doing their own thing (neither following the rules, nor following the "patron" of the peloton) and soon I found myself buried in the back of a combined 35/45+ peloton and out of position for a good sprint finish. I managed 11th in my category, but with a whopping 17 guys in the 35+ field, 11th is nothing to brag about.
The end of day one came and the morning's cold TT effort, plus a hot crit in the afternoon added up to some tired legs that needed to be rested and refueled. I moved up a few slots in GC and was now in the money at 12th overall. You could bet I was going to race my ass off to at least protect my potential $15 GC payout tomorrow. That's right beeyotches. I was racing for $15 and if I moved up few more slots, a crisp Andrew Jackson was mine. Day two's report to follow in the next post.
The action was nearly over, before it started. For breakfast, I was eating a McGriddle only to bite into something so acrid, so foul tasting that my mind immediately turned to: "what the hell is the poison control number?" My ED nurse instincts kick in and I start running through possibilities. Should I induce vomiting? Should I get an ECG, my heart is pounding, my stomach feels sick. What does counter-top cleaner taste like? What does it do to my blood's Ph? Alkalosis? Do I need oxygen? The next few hours I just "monitored" myself, continuing with the routine. My stomach did feel upset, my heart was pounding, but was it psychosomatic, or something real. I know I swallowed something real bad, but maybe my body would process it without drama? Trying to put the incident out of my head, I registered for the race, picked up great freebies (inner tubes, tire irons, free Clif bar gels) and set up the bike under cover of a lift back tailgait.
The race started early Saturday morning with an 11-mile hilly (but not so hilly that full TT rigs didn't have an advantage) time trial. A beautifully hard course, made all the more painful by 43 degree temperatures and rain. Weather.com forecasters predicted 10% chance of rain, and I predict there's a 95% chance those guys don't know what they're talking about. Okay, so I was grumpy, and wet and cold. Most TT's as part of stage races on the East Coast have been in the 18 minute range, but this one saw winners go for around 26 minutes and losers like myself clocking in 30+ minutes. True to form, the only guy I beat in the TT went off course up a hill and had to double back.
After the wife and I enjoyed a little brunch and Bennington shops browsing (where we discovered an AMAZING bakery, with cupcakes to die for), the sky started to clear as the action heated up during the afternoon's criteriums. Despite my relative lack of fitness and power/weight issues, my steady diet of midwest criterium racing gave me confidence that I could be up there with the big guns. The course was a classic 1k, 4-corner crit, with an out of the saddle big-ring bump after turn one, a screamingly fast right handed descending turn 3 and a nice wide boulevard home-stretch. I was right at home. During introductions race announcer Richard Fries did his best to put some fear into us mere mortals. "5-time US Pro Champion, Frank McCormack!" "Former Team Saturn pro Chris Fisher!" "Current national champion blah blah bluh, blah, blah."
No matter. I was ready. Early laps, I take a turn at the front to check out the tricky turns at race speed (to those who are new-ish to crits, do as I say, not as I do, don't leave this vital step to crit racing until the actual race begins). Feeling comfortable I settle backwards into the top 5. Two riders launch off the front (not Fisher or McCormack) and are never to be seen again. Various riders go to the front in efforts to bridge/chase, but nothing doing. I see McCormack roll to the front, and I think, "Oh, shit, this is going to hurt." And it did, like a muhtha-fucka. I thought I was going to die. For those of you who don't know, Frank McCormack was quite literally one of the best racers in the world--across multiple disciplines. Cyclocross, crits, road races. A big guy who never met a big ring that was big enough.
This short master's race was quickly coming to end. There was some field-mixing madness where I rolled up to Fischer and asked, "what are we doing, letting them go, or racing with them?" The officials wanted us to race separately, but I wasn't going to get caught out because I'm a rule follower only, so I asked one of the most experienced guys in our group and followed his lead. Unfortunately there were crashes and other guys who were doing their own thing (neither following the rules, nor following the "patron" of the peloton) and soon I found myself buried in the back of a combined 35/45+ peloton and out of position for a good sprint finish. I managed 11th in my category, but with a whopping 17 guys in the 35+ field, 11th is nothing to brag about.
The end of day one came and the morning's cold TT effort, plus a hot crit in the afternoon added up to some tired legs that needed to be rested and refueled. I moved up a few slots in GC and was now in the money at 12th overall. You could bet I was going to race my ass off to at least protect my potential $15 GC payout tomorrow. That's right beeyotches. I was racing for $15 and if I moved up few more slots, a crisp Andrew Jackson was mine. Day two's report to follow in the next post.
